ADVERTISEMENT
Afatinib Improves Survival in Patients with Advanced Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Results from a study comparing chemotherapy and afatinib in immunotherapy-naive patients with advanced lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) found that afatinib showed longer progression-free survival (PFS) and comparable overall survival (OS; BMC Cancer 21, 1225)
“Limited treatment options exist for relapsed advanced lung squamous cell carcinoma, leading to poor outcomes compared with adenocarcinoma. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of second-line afatinib versus chemotherapy in patients with advanced lung SCC who progressed after first-line chemotherapy,” explained You-Yi Chen, National Taiwan University Hospital Yunlin Branch, Yunlin Count, Douliu City, Taiwan, Republic of China, and colleagues.
The retrospective, multisite, cohort study recruited patients across four institutes in Taiwan with locally advanced or metastatic lung SCC. The primary endpoint of this study was PFS, while secondary endpoints included objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and OS.
Of the 108 patients included, 19 received second-line afatinib, and 89 received second-line chemotherapy. Among those who received afatinib, PFS was 4.7 months (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.1–7.5) compared to 2.6 months (95% CI, 0.9–6.7) in the chemotherapy arm. Furthermore, the median OS was longer in the afatinib group, but did not reach significance (16.0 months [95% CI, 6.1–22.0] vs. 12.3 months [6.2–33.9]; HR 0.65 [95% CI 0.38–1.11], p = 0.112).
“Afatinib offered a longer PFS and comparable OS to chemotherapy in advanced lung SCC patients in a real-world setting, it may be considered as a 2nd line alternative treatment choice for immunotherapy unfit advanced lung SCC patients,” concluded Dr Chen et al. —Alexandra Graziano
