Professor Akira Inoue and his group at Tohoku University have developed a new treatment method that combines molecular-targeted drugs and anticancer drugs for advanced lung cancer caused by EGFR gene abnormalities, which are relatively common in Japanese.
Since 2010, Professor Inoue and colleagues reported the efficacy of the molecular-targeted drug gefitinib in advanced lung cancer, the treatment has become the international standard of care.However, the problem was that about 3% of the patients whose condition worsened during the treatment with gefitinib could not switch to another effective anticancer drug treatment after that.Therefore, Professor Inoue and his colleagues worked on the development of a new treatment method that combines molecular-targeted drugs and anticancer drug treatment as a treatment strategy that "does not miss" effective treatment methods for patients.
In this study, a new combination therapy of molecular-targeted drug and anti-cancer drug significantly improved the time to worsening of the condition and survival time compared to the single-agent therapy of the molecular-targeted drug.The median survival time of patients exceeded 50 months, showing an unprecedentedly high effect in the treatment of advanced lung cancer.Although there were concerns about the safety of simultaneous multiple administration of anticancer drugs, there are side effects known in the past such as myelosuppression such as leukocyte and thrombocytopenia, but they are sufficiently controllable and are rarely found in molecular-targeted drugs. The frequency of serious side effects such as drug-induced pneumonia did not increase either.As a result, it was also confirmed that the index of the patient's quality of life was maintained at almost the same level as in the case of single administration of the molecular target drug.
Immunotherapy (immune checkpoint inhibitor) is said to be less effective for lung cancer, which is greatly affected by genes.In Japanese lung cancer, the frequency of EGFR gene abnormalities is about three times higher than in Europe and the United States, and treatment methods centered on molecular-targeted drugs will continue to be important.The treatment method reported this time is expected to help many lung cancer patients as a new standard therapy.
Paper information:[Journal of Clinical Oncology] Gefitinib Alone versus Gefitinib plus Chemotherapy for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer with Mutated EGFR: NEJ009 Study
