CHICAGO -- The adjuvant treatment of RET fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following potentially curative surgery or radiotherapy has a new standard of care, researchers reported here.
In a phase III study of patients who underwent definitive therapy for stage II-IIIA disease, event-free survival (EFS) at 2 years reached 92% with the oral RET inhibitor selpercatinib (Retevmo) versus 61% with placebo (HR 0.17, 95% CI 0.06-0.51, P<0.001), stated Jonathan Goldman, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles.
"The results are striking," he said during a press briefing. "This amounts to an 83% reduction in the risk of cancer recurrence."
The three deaths in the study, attributed to disease progression, were all in the placebo group, according to findings of the so-called LIBRETTO-432 study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"These results highlight the importance of testing for specific gene changes at the time of diagnosis so that patients start on the most appropriate therapy from the beginning," said Goldman.
