Clinical benefit of EGFR-TKIs plus radiotherapy for treating EGFR-mutated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
e20694 Background: Despite the high response rate and prolonged OS of patients with EGFR mutations treated with gefitinib or erlotinib, there are still major clinical obstacles. The local control rate is still low, only 19.4%–58%, with first-line treatment using EGFR-targeted therapy. The aim of this study is to provide scientific evidence to support the clinical benefits of EGFR-TKI combined with radiotherapy compared to EGFR-TKI alone. Methods: From February 2015 to May 2017, a total of 103 patients with stage IV EGFR-mutated NSCLC treated at Sichuan Cancer Hospital & Institute were analysed retrospectively. 50 patients were treated with EGFR-TKIs (gefitinib or erlotinib) plus radiotherapy (Group TKI-RT) and 53 patients received EGFR-TKIs alone (Group TKI). Tumour response, survival and toxicities were compared between the two groups. Results: Median follow up time was 11.7 months (range: 2.8–36.3 months). The overall response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) in Group TKI-RT vs. Group TKI were 62% vs. 37.7% (P = 0.014) and 88% vs. 75.5% (P = 0.101), respectively. The median progression-free survival (PFS) and median overall survival (OS) in Group TKI-RT were superior to those of Group TKI (18.87 months vs. 12.80 months, P = 0.035 and 23.10 months vs. 18.30 months, P = 0.011). OS rates in Group TKI-RT and Group TKI were 56.0% vs. 35.8% at 1-year (P = 0.04) and 16.0% vs. 3.8% at 2-year (P = 0.036). Multivariate Cox model found that TKI-RT related to significantly better OS (hazard ratio = 0.209; 95% CI, 0.066 to 0.661; P = 0.008) than TKI alone. Adverse events did not differ significantly between the two groups. Conclusions: Compared with EGFR-TKIs alone, EGFR-TKIs combined with radiotherapy was well tolerated and showed benefit in tumour response and survival for EGFR mutation-positive metastatic NSCLC patients.