Dr. Nagawaka Discusses Findings of the RELAY Trial in EGFR+ NSCLC

Kazuhiko Nakagawa, MD, PhD, Department of Medical Oncology, Kinki University Faculty of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama, discusses findings of the RELAY trial in EGFR-positive non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In the phase III RELAY trial, patients with EGFR-positive NSCLC were treated with erlotinib (Tarceva) plus ramucirumab (Cyramza) as a frontline therapy. Data presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting indicate the combination reduced the risk of progression or death by 40% compared with EGFR TKI therapy alone. Median progression-free survival (PFS) in the ramucirumab arm was 19.4 months, which Nakagawa adds is comparable with the striking data seen with osimertinib (Tagrisso) in the phase III FLAURA trial. In patients treated with erlotinib alone, median PFS was 12.4 months.

Notably, the PFS benefit with the EGFR TKI/VEGFR2 monoclonal antibody combination was observed across several key subgroups, including EGFR mutation type. For example, in the subset of patients with ex19del, the median PFS was 19.6 months with the combination versus 12.5 months with erlotinib alone.