New first-line treatment for small-cell lung cancer
Report from the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC)
Cheryl Ho, MD FRCPC, Medical Oncologist, BC Cancer, and Clinical Associate Professor, UBC;
and Alexandra Pender MB BChir MRCP PhD, BC Cancer
To view the complete article click
here (pdf format)
Commentary: Extensive-stage SCLC has a rapid clinical
course and is associated with high mortality, with a
median OS of 10 or 11 months. Combination platinum
chemotherapy has been the standard of care for decades
and has yet to be surpassed by other combinations or agents
in the first-line setting.
Extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an
aggressive thoracic malignancy with a median overall
survival (OS) of less than 1 year. Platinum combination
chemotherapy has been the standard-of-care
first-line treatment for extensive-stage SCLC for over
2 decades.
What this study showed
The addition of atezolizumab to platinum combination
chemotherapy increases the median OS by 2
months with an acceptable toxicity profile. Administration
of chemotherapy was not disrupted by the
addition of immunotherapy.
Next steps
Pending regulatory approval, atezolizumab with
platinum combination chemotherapy is a new standard
of care for good performance-status patients
with chemotherapy-naive extensive-stage SCLC.
