Plain language summary: updated results of lorlatinib treatment in people with advanced NSCLC from China

Future Oncol. 2024 Dec 2:1-12. doi: 10.1080/14796694.2024.2426376. Online ahead of print.
No abstract available

Plain language summary

What is this summary about?This study is about the effects of a medicine called lorlatinib (Lorbrena) in people from China with advanced ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had been treated before with other medicines. This summary contains updated results on people in the study after 3 years of observation. People were put into 2 groups based on the medicines they had taken before the study. People in Group 1 had taken a medicine called crizotinib (Xalkori). People in Group 2 had taken other types of a similar medicine, and some of them had also taken crizotinib. In this study, everyone took lorlatinib. Everyone in the study had cancer cells with changes in a gene called anaplastic lymphoma kinase, or ALK. The changes in the ALK gene can make cancer grow. This study looks at how well lorlatinib worked and its side effects in people from China with advanced ALK-positive NSCLC after observation for 3 years.What did this study find?After about 3 years of observation, researchers found that 53 out of the 67 people in Group 1 (79%) and 20 out of the 42 people in Group 2 (48%) had either a partial response or a complete response. Of the people who had a partial or complete response, at least half (the median duration of response) had this benefit for 31.7 months in Group 1 and 10.4 months in Group 2. After starting lorlatinib, at least half of the people lived without their cancer getting worse for 26.3 months in Group 1 and 5.6 months in Group 2. After 3 years of observation, more than half of the people in Group 1 are still alive. At least half of the people in Group 2 lived for 21.9 months. The most common side effects were high levels of cholesterol in more than 9 out of 10 people (94%), high levels of triglycerides in more than 9 out of 10 people (91%), and increased liver enzyme levels in about half of people (51%). These side effects were like the side effects reported earlier in the same study after people were observed for 1 year.What do the findings of the study mean?The results from this study show that people from China with advanced ALK-positive NSCLC who had been treated before with other medicines continued to benefit from lorlatinib for a long time, after observation for 3 years.Who should read this article?This summary was written to help people with advanced ALK-positive NSCLC, their caregivers, and healthcare professionals understand the 3-year results of this study.[Box: see text].