9 September 2019 - - British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca (OTC: AZNCF) presented detailed results from the Phase III CASPIAN trial, showing Imfinzi (durvalumab) significantly improved overall survival in patients with previously-untreated extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.

Imfinzi in combination with four cycles of standard-of-care chemotherapy (etoposide with either cisplatin or carboplatin) demonstrated a statistically-significant and clinically-meaningful improvement in OS vs. SoC chemotherapy consisting of up to six cycles of chemotherapy and optional prophylactic cranial irradiation.

The risk of death was reduced by 27% (equal to a hazard ratio of 0.73), with median OS of 13.0 months for Imfinzi plus chemotherapy vs. 10.3 months for SoC chemotherapy.

Results showed an OS benefit with an estimated 33.9% of patients alive at 18 months following treatment with Imfinzi plus chemotherapy vs. 24.7% of patients following SoC chemotherapy.

Across all efficacy endpoints, benefits were observed in patients treated with IMFINZI plus chemotherapy vs. SoC chemotherapy.

Results showed a higher progression-free survival rate at 12 months (17.5% vs. 4.7%), a 10.3% increase in confirmed objective response rate (67.9% vs. 57.6%), and improved duration of response at 12 months (22.7% vs. 6.3%).

The results were presented at the presidential Symposium of the IASLC 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer in Barcelona, Spain.

SCLC is an aggressive, fast-growing cancer that recurs and progresses rapidly despite initial response to platinum-based chemotherapy.

This is the first study to show efficacy of using a fixed dose of Imfinzi (1500mg) administered every three weeks while in combination with chemotherapy for 4 cycles and then every four weeks until disease progression, the company said.