At the beginning of December, the Food and Drug Administration approved Durvalumab (Imfinzi) – an immunotherapy drug – for the treatment of patients with limited stage small cell lung cancer, whose disease has not progressed following combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimen.
Until recently, Durvalumab has been approved for small cell lung cancer patients with extensive disease only.
The approval was based on results from a clinical trial in which 730 patients meeting the abovementioned criteria were randomly assigned to receive either Durvalumab as a single agent (study group 1), Durvalumab combined with another immunotherapy drug (study group 2), or placebo (control group).
At the end of the predetermined follow-up period, a significantly lower death rate was observed among patients receiving Durvalumab (study group 1), compared to those receiving placebo (control group).
Side effects were manageable, generally similar to those observed in other trials of Durvalumab.
Researchers concluded that Durvalumab is an effective treatment also for limited stage small cell lung cancer patients, whose disease has not progressed following combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimen.