Dr. Stinchcombe Discusses the PACIFIC Trial for NSCLC

Thomas E. Stinchcombe, MD, professor of medicine, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the PACIFIC trial for patients with non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The PACIFIC trial randomized patients with stage III NSCLC to durvalumab (Imfinzi) for 1 year or placebo. The trial showed a statistically significant improvement in response rate and progression-free survival (PFS), which showed an improvement of 11 months. These are promising results because the treatment landscape for this patient population has remained unchanged for 20 years, says Stinchcombe.

The median PFS was 16.8 months (95% CI, 13.0-18.1) with durvalumab compared with 5.6 months (95% CI, 4.6-7.8) for placebo (HR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.42-0.65; P <.001). The objective response rates were 28.4% versus 16.0%, respectively (P <.001)

The next steps are to build upon immunotherapy, identify which patients are most likely to benefit, and further investigate the overall survival which is still pending, explains Stinchcombe.