Dr. Ramalingam on the Significance of the FLAURA Trial in NSCLC

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, deputy director, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discusses the significance of the phase III results of the FLAURA trial, which explored osimertinib (Tagrisso) in the frontline setting for patients with EGFR-mutant non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Ramalingam shared this insight in an interview during the 2018 European Lung Cancer Congress, which is a joint collaboration between ESMO and the IASLC.

The phase III FLAURA trial, which compared first-line treatment with osimertinib with gefitinib (Iressa) or erlotinib (Tarceva) in patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC, is now published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Ramalingam says. Results showed that the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 18.9 months with osimertinib versus 10.2 months with standard therapy. Additionally, patients with or without central nervous system (CNS) metastases had similar hazard ratios.

Moreover, safety was also more favorable for patients who received osimertinib. For Ramalingam, the fact that the efficacy, CNS activity, and duration of response is significantly improved makes osimertinib a preferred frontline treatment option for patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC with exon 19 deletions or exon 21 mutations.