Isophoric News · Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Phase 3 trial reports longer survival with tarlatamab added to maintenance treatment for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer
Results of the phase 3 DeLLphi-305 trial, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress in Madrid, showed median overall survival of 21.1 months with the drug tarlatamab (Imdelltra) added to durvalumab (Imfinzi) maintenance, against 12.7 months with durvalumab alone, according to OncLive and Targeted Oncology and as MedPage Today reported. The trial enrolled 563 people with newly diagnosed extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer. All received platinum-etoposide chemotherapy plus durvalumab first, then were randomly assigned to maintenance with durvalumab alone or with tarlatamab. Median progression-free survival was 7.4 months against 1.9, median follow-up was about 16 months for survival, and the study population had a median age of 65, was about 70% men, was mostly white and was 90% current or former smokers, according to MedPage Today. Treatment-related adverse events, including grade 3 or higher events, were more frequent with the combination, and a similar share of patients in each group stopped treatment because of them, MedPage Today reported. Amgen, the maker of tarlatamab, announced on Sept. 8 that the trial met its primary overall survival endpoint at a pre-specified interim analysis and that no new safety signals were found, without giving figures at that time. The presenting investigator, Jacob Sands of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, called the regimen a new standard of care, and the invited discussant, Stephen Liu of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said biomarkers for choosing patients would be a key question. These are the investigators' assessments, and no regulator had approved this use as of the sources.
