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AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

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Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#41

Post by e40 »

kkio wrote: post #32

My father has been taking Tagrisso since he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer in January 2022. It’s been able to give him a relatively normal quality of life I don’t think my family would’ve seen otherwise if he’d gone through chemo and radiation. Just chiming in that I’m super thankful to that these newer treatments are so effective. That said it’s not cheap and he still has to work to keep his insurance… othe…

So glad to hear your father has made it 2 years. I have hopes for my wife (see my recent comment).

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#42

Post by adamredwoods »

According to Wikipedia, it depends on a specific cancer cell mutation, T790M, which could also be a forced mutation from using other EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This alludes how tricky, and how fast, cancer cells mutate and adapt.

>> In people treated with osimertinib, resistance usually develops within approximately 10 months.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osimertinib

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#43

Post by e40 »

pauln99 wrote: post #13

“Statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” perhaps, but not so much that they can say what that actually means. My understanding is that of all cancer drugs approved by the FDA between 2000-2016 (around 90 drugs), the median life extension was just over 2 months...

In this case, the extension is often far longer. See comment by @kkio. Our oncologist has people that have been on it for years, as well.

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#44

Post by e40 »

genman wrote: post #3

It is about Osimertinib, sold under the brand name Tagrisso. It works (in “statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” manner) against certain types of lung cancer when administered on early stage. It was provisionally approved after success in phase 1 trial by FDA in 2015 and by EMA in 2016. Side effects: Very common (greater than 10% of clinical trial subjects) adverse effects include diarrhea, stom…

The side effect you didn't mention: mouth sores. It's the only one that my wife had (in the first month). So far, no other problems, though the chemo started last week (see my comment about it, if curious).

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#45

Post by loeg »

instagraham wrote: post #27

> Tagrisso earned $5.8bn in sales in 2023 — 13 per cent of AstraZeneca’s total oncology sales — making it the company’s highest earner. The drug seems to have been approved in 2015-16. If that's the case, why is this announcement of efficacy happening now? A long-term outcome after a short-term tentative approval?

It was approved for certain types of cancers and has slowly been approved for more and more types of cancer, basically.

> Dec 21, 2020 Approval Tagrisso Approved in the US for the Adjuvant Treatment of Patients with Early-Stage EGFR-Mutated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

> Apr 18, 2018 Approval FDA Approves Tagrisso (osimertinib) as First-Line Treatment for EGFR-Mutated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

> Jun 6, 2017 AstraZeneca Presents Tagrisso (osimertinib) Data in Patients with EGFR T790M-Mutation Positive Lung Cancer and Central Nervous System Metastases

> Mar 31, 2017 Approval Tagrisso (osimertinib) Receives FDA Full Approval

> Nov 13, 2015 Approval FDA Approves Tagrisso (osimertinib) for EGFR T790M Mutation-Positive Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

https://www.drugs.com/history/tagrisso.html

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#46

Post by Scubabear68 »

latchkey wrote: post #36
Scubabear68 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with my dad in the 80s. His descent was horrible to witness, in my case at the age of 21. I’ll never know the truth, but I think his doctor took pity on him, dad died very shortly after a push of morphine.

Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear that. My mom was only 56 (2004) and I got a call from the hospice very early in the morning. At her request, I had tried to take care of her myself for the couple weeks after her diagnosis, but once the hallucinations started, due to her increasing the pain meds, she started screaming one night and the neighbors called the police thinking I was abusing her. Thankfully, they called…

My family tried home care in the terminal stage, but it was too much for my mom and sister. My mom also had some serious mental illnesses, compounding the difficulty we had as a family. The trauma was so great I did not really hit a normal state of emotional and mental stability until I was about 30.

I was the only one there as he took his last breath, and it still brings tears when I think about it.

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#47

Post by icegreentea2 »

pauln99 wrote: post #31
jncfhnb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distribution skews right on these things. Median probably is not the right way to think about it

Maybe I've misunderstood, but for the average person that's even worse news, right? Two months was from clinical trials where there's no doubt that the "thumb is on the scale" in a host of ways, creating an exaggerated estimate of efficacy that would be realised in the real world. The reality is closer to no life extension, with the remaining lifespan is spent sicker than you'd have been without the drugs.

Imagine a toy scenario where a cancer will kill 80% of people with it at exactly 3 years, and all 20% remaining will uh live full lives (so say another 20 years).

If you created a drug that shifted the ratio to 60/40, and measured right at the 5 year mark. In a population of 100 untreated people, you'd get like 4080 total months lived (80x36 + 20x60). In a population of 100 treated people, you'd get like 4560 months lived (60x36+40x60).

That's only generating an extra 4.8 months of life per person treated. However, you've doubled the number of people alive at the end of trial.

Now obviously this is a toy example that's probably a bit exaggerated, but this type of behavior is exactly why median/average life extension is an inadequate measure alone.

Re: AstraZeneca unveils successes in treatment of lung cancer

#50

Post by yieldcrv »

instagraham wrote: post #27

> Tagrisso earned $5.8bn in sales in 2023 — 13 per cent of AstraZeneca’s total oncology sales — making it the company’s highest earner. The drug seems to have been approved in 2015-16. If that's the case, why is this announcement of efficacy happening now? A long-term outcome after a short-term tentative approval?

US approval follows the path of one treatment for one ailment.

so if something was useful for 100 ailments, it needs 100 different approvals, and a company willing to attempt doing that

what more likely happens is one treatment is denied for the one ailment the company thought they were tackling, and that one treatment is never pursued again

so there's a lot of waste in this particular approach to protecting the public. I'm not familiar with other approaches.

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