Breaking Down Treatment Advancements for Small Cell Lung Cancer

During the CURE Educated Patient® Lung Cancer Summit, held in tandem with the 2025 PER® New York Lung Cancer Symposium in New York City, Dr. Charles M. Rudin sat down for an interview with CURE to discuss recent treatment advancements for patients with small cell lung cancer, such as immunotherapies and T cell engagers including Imdelltra (tarlatamab).

Notably, the Food and Drug Administration granted traditional approval to Imdelltra for adult patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer with disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy in November.

A thoracic medical oncologist, Rudin is the deputy director of the cancer center at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and co-directs the Druckenmiller Center focused on pre-clinical lung cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Transcript

What are some recent advancements in the treatment of small cell lung cancer that patients should be aware of?

So, within the last few years, there have been some changes in our standard of care that have really led to substantial benefits for patients. One has been the advent of immunotherapy. As it as for many cancers, the addition of immunotherapy to our chemotherapy backbone improves the probability of long term benefit, and for some patients, offers truly transformative benefits. So that's been a major advance, really, over the last six or seven years.

Much more recently, there's been advances with some new drugs that are appearing on the scene, including drugs that we're calling T cell engagers. These are drugs that are a different type of immunotherapy. They bind to the immune cell and they bind to the cancer cell and bring them together to activate the immune system against the cancer. There's a drug called [Imdelltra] that is actually showing real promise and activity in patients with small cell lung cancer, that actually has shown to be superior to chemotherapy for patients with recurrent small cell lung cancer in terms of both progression-free survival and overall survival. So, patients are living longer, and I would say living better as well, on [Imdelltra].

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Reference

1. “FDA Approves Imdelltra for Extensive-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer,” by Spencer Feldman. CURE; Nov. 19, 2025. https://www.curetoday.com/view/fda-approves-imdelltra-for-extensive-stage-small-cell-lung-cancer

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