Abstract
Purpose
EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been established as standard therapy for EGFR-mutated adenocarcinomas; for non-adenocarcinoma non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, this therapy remains debatable.
Methods
Stage IIIB/IV patients with non-adenocarcinoma NSCLC who underwent EGFR testing were identified at the Shanghai Chest Hospital from January 2009 to September 2014.
Results
A total of 51 patients with EGFR-sensitizing mutations [26 patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 15 patients with adenosquamous cell carcinoma (ASC), and 10 patients with large cell lung carcinoma (LCLC)] were available for analysis of EGFR TKI treatment efficacy. The progression-free survival (PFS) for the 51 patients harboring EGFR-sensitizing mutations was 4.93 months (95 % CI 3.93–5.93). The PFS for the SCC, ASC, and LCLC patients was 3.98 months (95 % CI 3.32–4.63), 8.08 months (95 % CI 4.17–12.00), and 4.40 months (95 % CI 1.56–7.24), respectively. Among the 51 non-adenocarcinoma NSCLC patients, the PFS of the non-smokers and smokers was 5.49 months (95 % CI 3.28–7.70) and 3.78 months (95 % CI 2.61–4.95), respectively (P = 0.036). The PFS for the patients with a deletion in exon 19 and for those with an exon 21 L858R mutation was 5.16 months (95 % CI 4.21–6.11) and 4.04 months (95 % CI 2.35–5.73), respectively (P = 0.414).
Conclusions
EGFR TKIs could be an option for the treatment of EGFR-mutated non-adenocarcinoma NSCLC, especially for patients with adenosquamous histology and non-smokers.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge support from the Department of Pathology of Shanghai Chest Hospital. We also thank Hua Zhong, Chunlei Shi, Aiqing Gu, Liwen Xiong, and Yizhuo Zhao for their provision of study materials or patients for this study.
Funding
This work was supported by Key Projects of the Biomedicine Department, Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Project No. 11411951200). The funders played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Jianlin Xu and Yanwei Zhang have contributed equally to this article.
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Xu, J., Zhang, Y., Jin, B. et al. Efficacy of EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors for non-adenocarcinoma lung cancer patients harboring EGFR-sensitizing mutations in China. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 142, 1325–1330 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-016-2133-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-016-2133-4