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Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
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Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#12In lung cancer with a particular mutation.
Still a good news
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#13Can someone explain the numbers to me? "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." So 88% instead of 78% without the pill were still alive five years on. I assume that is the m…
If 22% of patients in the placebo group died, and 12% in the test group, then that's a reduction of 1 - (12/22) = 45% in the risk of death over that time interval. The true value could easily be 51% if the percentages reported in the Guardian were rounded.
You could subtract both percentages by the baseline average risk of death for 5 years at the age group that people are most likely to get this type of cancer.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#14This is a great example of where cancer treatment is headed and why it's so hard - namely that cancer isn't one disease, it's many thousands of diseases. This is a drug that targets lung cancer (~12% of cancers) and only one type of lung cancer (non-small cell lung cancer, ~80% of cases). It targets a particular mutated gene that occurs in about 30% of that subtype. And then, about 50% of those patients respond. So d…
Agreed! This specifically is for adjuvant osimertinib for EGFR+ Stage IB–IIIA completely resected NSCLC.
The headline here is really strong -- and the actual abstract is much more sober: "5-year OS rate was 88% with osimertinib vs 78% with placebo" [Full abstract is here: https://meetings.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/219805 ]
P.S. Hi Chris! (I think I picked up a summer student from you last week!)
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#15These kind of medicines can easily cost 100k euro pp per year.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#16This is a great example of where cancer treatment is headed and why it's so hard - namely that cancer isn't one disease, it's many thousands of diseases. This is a drug that targets lung cancer (~12% of cancers) and only one type of lung cancer (non-small cell lung cancer, ~80% of cases). It targets a particular mutated gene that occurs in about 30% of that subtype. And then, about 50% of those patients respond. So d…
1.4% of all cancers is still a huge number of people helped in absolute numbers given around 40% of people will get cancer.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#17My mother is on what sounds like a similar pill (in result, if not mechanism of action) for a different cancer. Had a poor prognosis, genetically tested several times and after a few rounds of conventional chemo the test indicated she could take a daily pill. It’s wonderful, I’m so glad she is alive for her grandchild, for me, and for herself of course. I think she will probably still die “of” her cancer but at this point it has completely stopped the progression of it for several years. The side effects are a bit weird, and a bit bad, but not even THAT bad. Really came out of the blue for us, an unexpected outcome.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#18My mother in law has stage 4 lung cancer. Tagrisso is extending her life. The cancer has been shrinking since going on it with few side effects.
Unfortunately stage 4 cannot be cured, and at some point tagrisso stops working. My understanding is the cancer mutates and eventually develops resistance. Then she will go on chemo and her quality of life will go down.
I am thankful for modern medicine that we get some extra time with her.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#19My mother in law has stage 4 lung cancer. Tagrisso is extending her life. The cancer has been shrinking since going on it with few side effects. Unfortunately stage 4 cannot be cured, and at some point tagrisso stops working. My understanding is the cancer mutates and eventually develops resistance. Then she will go on chemo and her quality of life will go down. I am thankful for modern medicine that we get some extr…
My father is in this situation with prostate cancer. First line therapies have stopped working and now its on to chemo. I am hoping chemo won't damage him too much.
There are also radioligand therapies like lutetium 177 but they haven't been sequenced on chemo naive patients yet. So soc is chemo first.
Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half
#20My mother in law has stage 4 lung cancer. Tagrisso is extending her life. The cancer has been shrinking since going on it with few side effects. Unfortunately stage 4 cannot be cured, and at some point tagrisso stops working. My understanding is the cancer mutates and eventually develops resistance. Then she will go on chemo and her quality of life will go down. I am thankful for modern medicine that we get some extr…
advice on how to catch earlier?