Curie Brief
Turn on cookies to sign in
Signing in saves your progress to your Curie account. We can only do that with cookies on — turn them on to continue.
News
Adding gefitinib to standard chemo after surgery boosts survival in EGFR-mutant lung cancer. The phase 3 RAPHAEL trial found that intercalating gefitinib with platinum-based chemotherapy extended median disease-free survival to 58.8 months versus 41.9 months with chemo alone. The benefit was most pronounced in patients with stage III disease and exon 19 deletions, with manageable side effects overall.
A new phase 3 trial is making a case for adding the targeted therapy gefitinib to standard adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with completely resected EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Presented at the 2026 World Conference on Lung Cancer, the RAPHAEL trial showed that intercalating gefitinib with platinum-based chemo significantly extended disease-free survival compared to chemo alone — a meaningful win for a patient population that often faces high recurrence risk after surgery.
The trial enrolled 193 patients with stage II–IIIB non-squamous NSCLC who had undergone complete resection. Patients in the experimental arm received gefitinib woven between cycles of pemetrexed/cisplatin chemotherapy, followed by a year of gefitinib maintenance. Side effects were generally manageable, with nausea (70.6%) and acneiform rash (43.1%) being the most common in the gefitinib arm.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: These findings could reshape adjuvant treatment strategies for resected EGFR-mutant NSCLC, particularly for higher-risk stage III patients and those with exon 19 deletions — two groups that appeared to derive the greatest benefit from this approach.
