United Kingdom-based AstraZeneca's combination of Imfinzi (durvalumab) monotherapy and tremelimumab has failed to improve overall survival rate compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy in a head and neck cancer trial, it was reported yesterday.

The phase II Eagle trial is a randomised, open-label and multi-centre trial designed to evaluate Imfinzi monotherapy and Imfinzi in combination with anti-CTLA4 antibody tremelimumab against SoC chemotherapy in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The trial was conducted at 169 centres in 24 countries, including the US, Europe, South America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel and Australia.

According to the company, the primary endpoint of the trial was overall survival and the secondary endpoints included progression-free survival, landmark overall survival, objective response rate and duration of response. Around 880,000 patients have been diagnosed with head and neck cancer across the world last year, according to the company.