Lung Cancer Pill Cuts Risk of Death by Half, Study Finds

The Guardian reports: A pill taken once a day cuts the risk of dying from lung cancer by half, according to "thrilling" and "unprecedented" results from a decade-long global study. Taking the drug osimertinib after surgery dramatically reduced the risk of patients dying by 51%, results presented at the world's largest cancer conference showed...

Everyone in the trial had a mutation of the EGFR gene, which is found in about a quarter of global lung cancer cases, and accounts for as many as 40% of cases in Asia. An EGFR mutation is more common in women than men, and in people who have never smoked or have been light smokers. Speaking in Chicago, [Dr Roy Herbst, the deputy director of Yale Cancer Center and lead author of the study] said the "thrilling" results added huge weight to earlier findings from the same trial that showed the pill also halves the risk of a recurrence of the disease... Not everyone diagnosed with lung cancer is tested for the EGFR mutation, which needs to change, Herbst said, given the study's findings...

After five years, 88% of patients who took the daily pill after the removal of their tumour were still alive, compared with 78% of patients treated with a placebo. Overall, there was a 51% lower risk of death for those who received osimertinib compared with those who received placebo. The survival benefit "was observed consistently" in an analysis across all study subgroups, including those with stage one, stage two and stage three lung cancer. Chemotherapy had been given to 60% of those in the study, and the survival benefit of osimertinib was seen regardless of whether prior chemotherapy was received.

If I'm reading TFS correctly

[93 Escort Wagon]

This is NOT about smoking-induced lung cancer. So while interesting, it's not earth-shaking.

Re:If I'm reading TFS correctly

[backslashdot]

About one-third of patients had a history of smoking: "which suggested the pill works for smokers and non-smokers diagnosed with lung cancer."

Looks like this pill reduces the chance of dying within 5 years of surgery from around 22% to about 12%. Not a miracle-level cure but still decent for people who have EGFR-driven cancers that haven't developed the C797S mutation in any cancer cells.

Re:

[Mr0bvious]

You'll never know unless you take one.

Re:

[mobby_6kl]

Shit, I just picked up smoking for the first time!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah if only there was a way to prevent smoking induced lung cancer...

Re:

[quantaman]

This is NOT about smoking-induced lung cancer. So while interesting, it's not earth-shaking.

Kinda, but it's still pretty common FTA:

Everyone in the trial had a mutation of the EGFR gene, which is found in about a quarter of global lung cancer cases, and accounts for as many as 40% of cases in Asia. An EGFR mutation is more common in women than men, and in people who have never smoked or have been light smokers.

So it looks like this mutation makes getting lung cancer a lot more likely, though I'm not sure if exacerbates smoking induced cancer or if it's a second independent causal factor.

About two-

Re:

[sound+vision]

Nobody under 30 even smokes anymore. Keep the weird additives out of the vapes (including THC vapes) and you've basically eliminated smoking-related cancer.

Re:

[NotAMarshallow]

As I posted, this is amazing and I can say so first-hand. It is in it's second generation with a third generation being tested. It cut my wife's stage 4 lung cancer to the point that the last CAT scan after six months the XRay technician didn't even note that there was a tumor. This drug is amazing. And yes, she did smoke.

Re:

[leathered]

Lung cancer cases are significant in Asia due to indoor cooking on wood fires.

It turns out that burning any organic plant material and inhaling the smoke can cause lung cancer. Weed smokers take note.

No thank you

[ArchieBunker]

Unless it works on livestock I'm not interested.

Re:

[backslashdot]

You're mistaken, this is a pill for cancer not birth control.

Re:

[RightSaidFred99]

Far too often I use the phrase "sick burn" with an overly ironic intonation. This may be the first time I have ever felt the need to use it completely unironically.

That, my friend, is indeed a sick burn.

Re:

[antdude]

Humans are livestocks now. ;)

This stuff works. I know first hand

[NotAMarshallow]

My wife was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer late last year. She could barely breath from fluid build-up around her lung. I had to learn to drain her fluid from around her lung every 36 hours. One month after taking Tagriso the fluid decreased. Now, five months later there is no longer any fluid being drained and the size of the tumor has shrunked to the point that the XRay technician didn't even make note of it on her CAT scan. It does have side-effects that can be troublesome. We are fortunate that her only side-effect is extreme tiredness and she requires about 12 hours a sleep a day. But she has regained her strength and is living a normal life again. As for the comments about non-smokers vs smokers, this is misleading. Yes, the number of people with the gene mutation is about 50% for non-smokers and mostly women. But when you take in the number of non-smokers vs smokers as a total population the numbers change quite a bit.

Guess how expensive?

[p51d007]

AVERAGE retail price of $17,000.00 per month Oh, I'm sure your insurance will cover it...LOL

Re: Guess how expensive?

[baker_tony]

Good news, in developed countries, it'll be funded.

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

Because prices never come down between a bespoke limited clinical trial and the mass production that follows FDA approval, do they?

Please shoot the poster/editor...

[OneOfMany07]

There is a lot of information in the body of the article that I didn't care about when trying to read it. And what I DID want to know felt lacking.

What does do? What happens after people take the pill (like side effects)?

Don't care what geographic regions it'll matter for if I don't know what it does. Don't care which sexes have which version more often.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me summarize your post. You're mildly curious about the drug, how it works, and any known side effects but not curious enough to type "Osimertinib" into Google to do the most basic research.

If you expect other members to spoon-feed you information because the summary didn't have enough detail for you, well, you will just have to be disappointed this time. Even my 6yo niece knows how to use Google to find information.

Nicotinamide prevents skin cancer

[buzz_mccool]

For pennies a day, a form of Vitamin B3 called nicotinamide (also known under the less scary name niacinamide) has been shown to prevent nonmelanoma skin cancers. See https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1506197 [nejm.org]

Re:

[buzz_mccool]

I was trying to provoke thought in reminding readers there is a very inexpensive way of preventing the re-occurrence of some skin cancers. So perhaps there is a very inexpensive way of preventing the re-occurrence of some lung cancers out there instead of the expensive drug that was the subject of the article.

What are the side effects?

[SciCom Luke]

The chances of dying from long cancer are not that great.
What are the side effects and the chances of them?

How do you get 51% From 88% to 77%?

[youn]

Interesting math there

Re:

[samwichse]

Flip the numbers, 12% vs 23% death. Although it's still not over halved, so I'm not sure where that specific number comes from. Be nice if I could read the published article.