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WCLC 2016 | Atezolizumab with erlotinib in combination treatment for EGFR mutant NSCLC

Charles Rudin MD, PhD of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY discusses targeted therapies, immunotherapy and their combination in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) therapy. Targeted therapy and immunotherapy are complimentary strategies. Targeted inhibitors are associated with very high response rate in tumors with specific mutations which are targeted by these drugs. However, almost all patients treated with targeted inhibitors will relapse. Immunotherapy is different in that are a smaller fraction of patients will respond, but response is potentially more durable. The goal of this trial was to try and get the benefits of each type of treatment. Atezolizumab, an anti-programmed death ligand (PD-L1) antibody was combined with erlotinib, a targeted inhibitor for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutant lung cancers. This was with the hope that the two would work in combination, with the erlotinib inducing major objective responses and the atezolizumab giving a benefit in terms of immunotherapy. This was a Phase Ib study combining these agents for the first time and part of the goal was safety, dose finding, and combination safety ( ). One cohort enrolled patients regardless of EGFR mutant status. There was also an expansion cohort which was limited to EGFR mutant lung cancer who had not previously seen erlotinib. This cohort looked at both safety and efficacy. Recorded at the 2016 World Conference of Lung Cancer (WCLC) of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) in Vienna, Austria.