An exploratory eight-year landmark update from the Phase III ADAURA trial found that adjuvant osimertinib continued to provide a long-term overall survival benefit for patients with completely resected, EGFR-mutated stage IB-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer said. The findings were presented at the association's 2026 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Seoul and published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the association's official journal.

For patients with stage II-IIIA disease, the eight-year overall survival rate was 74% with osimertinib compared with 58% with placebo, a difference of 16 percentage points, the association said. The hazard ratio for overall survival in that group was 0.53 (95% CI, 0.38-0.75).

Across the overall stage IB-IIIA population, the eight-year overall survival rate was 79% with osimertinib against 64% with placebo, a difference of 15 percentage points. The overall survival hazard ratio was 0.52 (95% CI, 0.39-0.71), and the association said benefit was observed across predefined subgroups.

ADAURA is a global, double-blind, randomized Phase III trial that enrolled 682 patients with completely resected EGFR-mutated stage IB-IIIA NSCLC. Patients were randomized to once-daily osimertinib 80 mg or placebo for up to three years, and adjuvant chemotherapy was permitted. All patients had already had the opportunity to complete three years of study treatment before this long-term exploratory analysis. The update extends earlier ADAURA findings of statistically significant disease-free survival and overall survival benefits with adjuvant osimertinib, and three years of adjuvant osimertinib is the standard of care in this setting.

Roy Herbst, M.D., of Dartmouth Cancer Center in Lebanon, N.H., said the additional long-term findings further characterize the established survival benefit of adjuvant osimertinib for this population, with or without adjuvant chemotherapy. He said the study is the first to establish the paradigm that bringing targeted drugs to patients with earlier-stage disease can delay progression and improve survival.