Cetuximab combined with chemotherapy is beneficial for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer after EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors failure.

To determine if cetuximab combined with chemotherapy is beneficial for patients with advanced NSCLC after failure of first-line chemotherapy and EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). Twenty patients were treated with cetuximab in combination with pemetrexed, and 14 patients were treated with cetuximab in combination with docetaxel. Short-term response rates and long-term survival after salvage therapy were evaluated. Partial response (PR) occurred in 4 patients, stable disease (SD) occurred in 13 patients, and progressive disease (PD) occurred in 17 patients. No patient achieved a complete response (CR). The objective response rate (ORR) was 11.8% (4/34) and the disease control rate (DCR) was 50.0% (17/34). The disease progression rate (DPR) was 50% (17/34). Further analyses showed that the DCR was significantly higher in patients treated with EGFR-TKI for ≥6 months compared to patients treated with EGFR-TKI for <6 months (P=0.031). The median follow-up time was 5.5 months. The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 4.1 months. PFS was significantly longer in patients treated with EGFR-TKI for ≥ 6 months compared to those treated <6 months with EGFR-TKI (5.9 vs. 3.0 months; P=0.004). In general, however, patients tolerated this therapy well and there were no therapy-related deaths. As a salvage therapy, cetuximab combined with chemotherapy is indeed beneficial for patients with advanced NSCLC after first-line chemotherapy and subsequent EGFR-TKI treatment failure. In particular, this salvage regimen is beneficial for patients who were treated with EGFR-TKI for ≥6 months, and is well tolerated in these patients.