Real-world study of Gilotrif shows second line treatment efficacy in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.- Boehringer

Boehringer announced new data for Gilotrif (afatinib) which shows its activity in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. Analysis from a retrospective, real-world study of patients with metastatic squamous NSCLC who progressed on first-line pembrolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy provides effectiveness and safety data for afatinib following immunotherapy (IO) in this second-line setting. Median overall time on treatment (TOT) for patients who received second-line afatinib was 7.3 months (95% confidence interval [CI]; 5.2-8.1). Incidence of severe immune-related adverse events (irAEs) occurred in six patients (pneumonitis, colitis, hepatitis). This analysis also evaluated chemotherapy in this second-line setting, with median overall TOT of 4.2 months (95% CI; 3.9-4.9). There were no reported irAES in the chemotherapy cohort. Comment: "Given relatively recent advances with immunotherapy, prospective trials have yet to investigate the use of afatinib following first-line immunotherapy and chemotherapy in metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer," said Edward S. Kim, M.D., FACP, Levine Cancer Institute. "Findings from this study suggest that second-line afatinib is generally well-tolerated and effective in patients with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the lung when pembrolizumab is added to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy." The findings are being presented at the IASLC 2020 North America Conference on Lung Cancer hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (NACLC 2020).