Alimta maintenance therapy positive in elderly NSCLC patients

A new subgroup analysis of data from the Phase III PARAMOUNT study showed that continuation maintenance therapy with Alimta from Eli Lilly (pemetrexed for injection) also reduces the risk of disease progression in patients aged 70 years or older with advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer. Results from the new analysis were presented during the Lung Cancer � Metastatic Poster Session (Abstract #9072) at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (formerly known as the ECCO-ESMO Cancer Congress ) in Stockholm, Sweden . PARAMOUNT is the first study to evaluate the use of continuation maintenance therapy with Alimta following first-line Alimta plus cisplatin therapy. A total of 939 patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC were enrolled in the study; 539 did not progress during the induction phase and entered the maintenance phase of the trial. Of those, 92 patients were elderly. The new analysis compared Alimta to placebo in elderly patients aged greater than or equal to 70 years (n=92). In the group of elderly patients, Alimta reduced the risk of disease progression by 65 percent (hazard ratio, 0.35; 95% CI: 0.20�0.63), based on a median progression-free survival of 6.4 months on the Alimta arm compared with 3.0 months on the placebo arm.