Trever Bivona, MD, PhD

“The results of this trial are promising but need to be reproduced in the United States and other countries before clear recommendations can be made. There are adjuvant studies such as ALCHEMIST underway to test this strategy in U.S. patients,” said Trever Bivona, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, and medical oncologist at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco.

“It’s unclear if these results are generalizable to the United States. The data would need to be reproduced in other countries such as the United States and in Europe as well to establish the generalizability of the results,” he cautioned.

The results of this trial are promising but need to be reproduced in the United States and other countries before clear recommendations can be made.

— Trever Bivona, MD, PhD

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Dr. Bivona said that the reasons for the excess deaths in the gefitinib arm were not clear from the presentation at a press briefing before the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting. “The number of deaths is relatively similar in the two arms. One possibility is an imbalance of increased comorbidities in the gefitinib arm. This possibility would need to be addressed by the authors,” he said.

Dr. Bivona lauded the investigators for this effort. “There should be increasing efforts such as this trial to bring the potential benefit of targeted therapy to patients with earlier-stage lung cancer,” he stated. ■

DISCLOSURE: Dr. Bivona reported no conflicts of interest.