New quality-of-life data presented for Tomtovok (Boehringer) treated patients with NSCLC

Boehringer has released new results on the secondary endpoints of LUX-Lung 3, a Phase III trial of Tomtovok (afatinib) compared to chemotherapy (pemetrexed/cisplatin) in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation-positive advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Three lung cancer symptoms � cough, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and pain � were analyzed and results showed that a higher proportion of afatinib-treated patients had 10 point or more improvements in cough (67% vs. 60%), dyspnea (64% vs. 50%) and pain (59% vs. 48%) compared with those treated with chemotherapy. Patients treated with afatinib also reported a delay in the worsening of their lung cancer-related symptoms � cough (HR=0.60; p=0.0072) and dyspnea (HR=0.68; p=0.0145) � compared with those treated with chemotherapy. The time to deterioration of pain was not significant between the treatment arms (HR=0.82; p=0.1913). Mean symptom scores over time significantly favored afatinib over chemotherapy for cough and dyspnea.

The study also met its primary endpoint of PFS with afatinib versus chemotherapy (11.1 versus 6.9 months, respectively) in patients with EGFR mutation-positive advanced NSCLC. Results are presented at the ESMO 2012 Congress.