Dr. Spigel Reflects on the PACIFIC Study in NSCLC

David Spigel, MD, chief scientific officer, director, Lung Cancer Research Program, principal investigator, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, reflects on the results of the PACIFIC trial in patients with non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Until the PACIFIC study, Spigel says that all the pivotal work over the last several years has been in the advanced stage. The PACIFIC study looked the role of immunotherapy in patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC. Findings of the study showed that durvalumab (Imfinzi) significantly improved overall survival versus placebo when used as a sequential treatment in patients with locally-advanced, unresectable NSCLC who had not progressed following standard chemoradiotherapy.

Since the discovery of concurrent chemoradiation, Spigel says that not much has been achieved by way of novel therapies for this population. This was the first time that a new therapy impacted the standard of care of chemoradiation in this setting, Spigel states.