Background: Patients treated with anti-EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) may receive dose reduction due to toxicity; however, the impact on treatment efficacy and patient outcome remains unknown.
Patients and methods: Patients with stage IV NSCLC harbouring EGFR mutations and treated at our institution were retrospectively analyzed for treatment with TKI in 2012 or later.
Results: Thirty patients with EGFR mutated adenocarcinoma were identified meeting the inclusion criteria. Eleven patients received cytotoxic therapy as first line treatment yielding in a response rate of 36 %. All patients were treated with TKI as first or second-line therapy which resulted in disease stabilization (23 %) or response (77 %) in all patients. The median progression-free survival was 21.4 months with 21 patients still on treatment with TKI. For 7 patients, the dose of TKI treatment had to be reduced due to co-morbidities (n = 2) or skin toxicity (rash ≥ grade 3; n = 5). These patients demonstrated a similar response and outcome as compared to patients receiving full dose TKI treatment.
Conclusion: Patients with EGFR mutated NSCLC and the need for TKI dose reduction seem to benefit in a similar manner from TKI therapy.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.