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Celebrating 25 years of lung cancer

Lung Cancer | Last Active: Sep 10, 2023 | Replies (125)

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@lijda

I'm sorry about the news you're receiving. In an earlier post, you mentioned that your tumor tested positive for the EGFR mutation. You could (should) ask your oncologist if Tagrisso (Osimertinib) might not be an alternative to chemotherapy. Tagrisso is now recommended as adjuvant treatment, to prevent recurrence for patients with EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R after successful surgical removal of the tumor. (There are other flavors of EGFR mutations, perhaps yours isn’t an exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R, although these are the most common.) Adjuvant treatment is additional cancer treatment given after the primary treatment (such as surgery) to lower the risk that the cancer will come back.

Your oncologist might prefer to use chemotherapy as a first-line adjuvant therapy but the clinical trial for Tagrisso as adjuvant treatment was not limited to that; it was testing the use of Tagrisso in early-stage EGFR-positive lung cancer “following complete tumour resection with or without adjuvant chemotherapy.” It would certainly be interesting to learn if your oncologist plans to recommend Tagrisso after first-line chemotherapy adjuvant therapy.

Tagrisso also reduces the risk of the spread of the cancer to the brain or spinal cord.

Here is a link to the FDA approval for Tagrisso as adjuvant treatment:
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resources-information-approved-drugs/fda-approves-osimertinib-adjuvant-therapy-non-small-cell-lung-cancer-egfr-mutations
And here is a link from AstraZeneca (the maker of Tagrisso) about the results of a clinical trial using Tagrisso as adjuvant treatment.
https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2022/tagrisso-demonstrated-5-year-median-disease-free-survival-in-the-adjuvant-treatment-of-patients-with-egfr-mutated-lung-cancer.html
Although exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R are the common EGFR mutations, another study showed that “Osimertinib demonstrates activity in patients with uncommon EGFR-mutations, and especially for G719X-compound mutations.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9271433/ )

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Replies to "I'm sorry about the news you're receiving. In an earlier post, you mentioned that your tumor..."

Yes, my doctor has prescribed Tagrisso following 4 chemo treatments 3 weeks apart. This is as a precaution as pathology report showed cancer cells touching the inner pleural membrane.
Thank you.

Yes, Tagrisso for 3 years after chemo. Thanks. I’m hopeful.