AstraZeneca announces positive data for endometrial cancer treatment

30-May-2023 - Last updated on 30-May-2023 at 13:17 GMT

Related tags Astrazeneca Cancer Oncology Phase 3

AstraZeneca has announced positive high-level data from its DUO-E phase 3 trial for patients with endometrial cancer.

The data showed that IMFINZI (durvalumab) in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy followed by either IMFINZI plus LYNPARZA (olaparib) or IMFINZI alone as maintenance therapy, both demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy alone.

In addition, there was a greater clinical benefit observed with the combination of IMFINZI and LYNPARZA as maintenance treatment.

Overall survival (OS) data were immature at the time of this analysis, however a favorable trend was observed for both treatment regimens.

Endometrial cancer

Endometrial cancer is the 6th most common cancer in women worldwide, with over 417,000 patients diagnosed and over 97,000 deaths in 2020.

Diagnoses are expected to rise by almost 40% by 2024 and long-term outcomes in first line treatment remain poor, with more novel treatment options needed.

According to AstraZeneca, the data represents a “step forward” towards a potential treatment that could allow patients to live longer without their cancer progressing.

“These exciting data demonstrate durvalumab immunotherapy can significantly delay disease progression for patients with endometrial cancer and the addition of the PARP inhibitor olaparib can improve the benefit further,” Shannon Westin, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at the University of Texas and principal investigator of the DUO-E trial said.

“These combinations could provide physicians with new treatment approaches to improve outcomes for patients.”

Susan Galbraith, executive vice president, oncology R&D at AstraZeneca added: “These DUO-E data demonstrate for the first time the power of combining immunotherapy and a PARP inhibitor to provide meaningful clinical improvements for patients with endometrial cancer."

“These results underscore our ambition to redefine cancer care and we hope to bring this innovative IMFINZI and LYNPARZA combination to endometrial cancer patients as soon as possible.”