New Study Finds Lung Cancer “Maintenance Therapy” Drug

Study shows erlotinib can improve the survival rate for patients with non-small cell lung cancer. 

A new study published in Lancet Oncology has found that the drug Erlotinib (brand name: Tarceva), when administered after a chemotherapy treatment, can improve the survival rate for patients with non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC).  The drug had previously been used to treat both NSCLC and pancreatic cancer, but this was one of the first trials of the drug as a supplemental treatment.

Dr. Federico Cappuzzo of the Civil Hospital in Livorno, Italy, led the study of 889 lung cancer patients.  The researchers grouped the patients according to their chemotherapy routines, smoking history, and area of the country in which they lived to insure a wide range of study subjects.

Nearly half of the patients in the study were administered 150 milligrams of Erlotinib per day as part of their chemotherapy routines, while the rest received a harmless placebo.  The study also tracked the side effects of the additional maintenance therapy.  While some patients reported experiencing skin rashes and diarrhea with Erlotinib, the proportion was only slightly higher than those who received the placebo (11% vs. 8%). 

Dr. Cappuzzo’s team found that Erlotinib was useful as a “maintenance therapy” for patients who had undergone chemotherapy and whose disease had not progressed.  The researchers followed up with the study subjects a year later and found that the addition of Erlotinib is “well tolerated” and that its inclusion in the chemotherapy treatments “significantly prolongs PFS (progression-free survival) compared with the placebo”.  (“Erlotinib as maintenance treatment in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer: a multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled phase 3 study”, Lancet Oncology, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2810%2970112-1/abstract).

With more than four out of five cases of lung cancer classified as NSCLC, the scope of the study’s impact could be tremendous.  The study concluded that the drug’s effectiveness at prolonging a patient’s survival, along with its minimal side effects, “could provide greater treatment choice for clinicians”

For more information on lung cancer, please visit www.lung-cancer.com.