First-line single agent treatment with gefitinib in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer

To assess the efficacy and toxicity of gefitinib in Chinese patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a study of single agent treatment with gefitinib in Chinese patients was conducted.45 patients with advanced NSCLC were treated with gefitinib (250 mg daily) until the disease progression or intolerable toxicity.Among the 45 patients, 15 patients achieved partial response (PR), 17 patients experienced stable disease (SD), and 13 patients developed progression disease (PD). None of the patients achieved complete response (CR). The tumor response rate and disease control rate was 33% and 71.1%, respectively. Symptom remission rate was 72.5%, and median remission time was 8 days. Median overall survival and median progression-free survival was 15.3 months and 6.0 months, respectively. The main induced toxicities by gefitinib were skin rash and diarrhea (53.3% and 33.3%, respectively). The minor induced toxicities included dehydration and pruritus of skin (26.7% and 22.2%, respectively). In addition, hepatic toxicity and oral ulceration occurred in few patients (6.7% and 4.4%2, respectively).Single agent treatment with gefitinib is effective and well tolerated in Chinese patients with advanced NSCLC.Lung cancer is a malignant carcinoma with high morbidity and mortality in Chinese population. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 80% of all lung cancers. The synthetical therapy has been developed remarkably, however the efficacy on locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC is still poor. Recently, the molecular-targeted therapy with gefitinib shows favorable performance. Gefitinib is a tyrosine kinase (TK) inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). It blocks signal pathways involved in proliferation and survival of cancer cells [1], and displays activity against malignant tumors. Two large randomised phase II studies (IDEAL1 and 2) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC after failure of platinum-based chemothe