This clinical trial is designed to determine if early-stage NSCLC patients who receive chemotherapy and immunotherapy prior to surgery have longer disease-free survival if they are also treated with immunotherapy after surgery. Immunotherapy has been one of the great modern-day discoveries in cancer, with the drug combatting one of the mechanisms tumours use to hide from the patient’s own immune system.
In Australia, NSCLC patients are restricted to ‘once in a lifetime’ PBS-reimbursed immunotherapy. The opportunity to access immunotherapy outside of PBS supply, ‘reserves’ PBS reimbursed immunotherapy for another line of treatment. This is a particular appeal of this study, as is the collection of circulating tumour DNA from blood samples which may enable us to determine ‘biomarkers’ that identify the early-stage NSCLC patients most at risk of relapse. Thus becoming good candidates for immunotherapy after surgery.
In addition, the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, opening in mid-2025, is expected to identify more NSCLC patients with early-stage disease who could be candidates for the ADOPT-Lung clinical trial.
“The ADOPT-Lung trial is an opportunity to examine if there is any improvement in survival in early-stage NSCLC patients using immunotherapy before and then after surgery. There is no high-level evidence to inform us whether this is needed over having it only before the surgery. The study will use liquid biopsies to also understand how this extra information could inform how we tailor treatment and treat early stage lung cancer better.” – Dr Malinda Itchins, Lead Investigator for ADOPT-Lung Australia
