The study of patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who received an immunotherapy-based treatment combination, yielded encouraging results in a phase II trial, says Roy Herbst, MD, PhD (video above). A Yale Cancer Center deputy director and assistant dean of translational research at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Herbst is among the many Yale Cancer Center researchers and clinicians attending the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago, Ill in a week.
“The COAST study, which we began five years ago, involves patients who get chemotherapy and radiation therapy for lung cancer. And now we know that we can improve the outcome with a drug called durvalumab,” explained Dr. Herbst, who will present the findings at ASCO.
“So now we've taken durvalumab and we've combined that with other agents, agents to target CD73. And now there will be an update on the survival from that,” Dr. Herbst explains.
“I predict that in the world of lung cancer, we'll hear about, more TKIs (tyrosine kinase inhibitors) …and also the paradigm of moving our best therapies earlier (in treatment),” he said.
Dr. Herbst said he anticipates progress at the ASCO meeting, where new science, new drugs, new data, and new multimodality approaches will be explained and explored. “This is where the trials are developed because we all meet and discuss and get together. You can join these meetings virtually, but I'm very happy we're going to have a large in-person presence from Yale School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center this year.”
Media members interested in speaking with Dr. Roy Herbst, please contact YCC media relations officer, Michael Masciadrelli (michael.masciadrelli@yale.edu).