Successful treatment of lung adenocarcinoma with gefitinib based on EGFR gene amplification

In the past, the optimal first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with wild-type for epidermal growth factor receptor (wt-EGFR) has been platinum-based chemotherapy doublets (1,2). More recently, clinicians have adopted immunotherapy with check-point inhibitors alone, in PD-L1 strong positive, or combined with chemotherapy independently to PD-L1 expression (3). In the second-line, for wt-EGFR patients, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been considered, albeit controversially, as a potential treatment option (4,5). Several studies have shown that EGFR gene copy number or amplification detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) could be a good biomarker for predicting treatment response to EGFR TKIs in patients with advanced NSCLC (6-8). Here we reported a successful experience with a patient with lung adenocarcinoma wt-EGFR and EGFR gene amplification who received benefit from gefitinib treatment