Disappointment for Advanced NSCLC Patients Expressing EGFR WT

EGFR

Phase II study findings show only marginal positive effects of third-line treatment with afatinib for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with wild-type epidermal growth-factor receptor () tumour status.

The Oncologist

There were no confirmed complete or partial responses, and only a quarter of the cohort achieved disease control, for a median of 19.3 weeks, report the researchers in .

EGFR

There is currently no standard therapy for this population, the team notes, and while the current findings reveal only limited clinical benefit of afatinib, the fact that there was even marginal benefit “highlights the need to investigate further the opportunities for biomarker-driven therapy in wild-type patients.”

EGFR

Keunchil Park, from the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and co-workers, investigated the efficacy of the irreversible inhibitor of the ErbB receptor family — afatinib – in a group of 38 stage IIIB/IV NSCLC patients aged a median of 58 years who had previously been tested by direct sequencing and found to have wild-type tumours. All patients had undergone two previous chemotherapy regimens, and all received 40 mg afatinib orally, on a 28-day dosing cycle.

Read the original report here: http://bit.ly/1lnJg1B

Source: News-Medical