• Rogerio Lilenbaum, Rita Axelrod, Sachdev Thomas, Afshin Dowlati, Leonard Seigel, Donald Albert, Karsten Witt, and David Botkin.
• Mount Sinai Cancer Center; 4306 Alton Road; Miami Beach, FL 33140, USA. rlilenbaum@aptiumoncology.com
• J. Clin. Oncol. 2008 Feb 20; 26 (6): 863-9.

PurposeA multicenter randomized phase II trial to evaluate two treatment strategies in the first-line management of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with a performance status (PS) of 2.Patients And MethodsPatients were assigned to erlotinib 150 mg orally daily until progression or to carboplatin (area under the curve [AUC] 6) and paclitaxel (200 mg/m(2) day 1 every 3 weeks) for up to four cycles. Patients who experienced progression or did not tolerate or refused further chemotherapy were allowed to cross over to erlotinib. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary end points were response, survival, quality of life (QOL), and a retrospective molecular correlation.ResultsFifty-two patients were randomly assigned to erlotinib and 51 to chemotherapy. Partial responses were 2% and 12%, respectively. Median PFS was 1.9 months in the erlotinib arm and 3.5 months in the chemotherapy arm (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.45; 95% CI, 0.98 to 2.15; P = .06). Median survival times were 6.5 and 9.7 months, respectively (HR = 1.73; 95% CI, 1.09 to 2.73; P = .018). Patients who crossed over to erlotinib had a median survival of 14.9 months. Sex, histology, skin rash, and smoking history predicted outcome with erlotinib. Rash and diarrhea were more common with erlotinib; emesis, alopecia, peripheral neuropathy, and fatigue were more common with chemotherapy. QOL was similar between the two arms. Molecular correlation was limited by available samples.ConclusionUnselected patients with advanced NSCLC and PS 2 are best treated with combination chemotherapy as first-line therapy. Erlotinib may be considered in patients selected by clinical or molecular markers.

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