title: Re-administration after the failure of gefitinib or erlotinib in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Few treatment options are available for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who have failed of gefitinib or erlotinib treatment in second/third-line treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of re-administration of the same TKI after failure of gefitinib or erlotinib.
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical data of 33 patients with advanced NSCLC were retrospectively analyzed. All of the patients were given the same TKI treatment after the failure of gefitinib or erlotinib. Survival analysis was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty patients (60.6%) were re-administration with gefitinib as the 2(nd) EGFR-TKI, and thirteen patients (39.4%) received erlotinib. One patient (3.0%) showed partial response (PR), 14 (42.4%) achieved stable disease (SD), and 18 (54.5%) had progressive disease (PD). The disease control rate was 45.5% and the median progression-free survival was 1.5 months (95% CI: 0.6-2.3 months). The PFS in patients who got disease control in the prior TKI was 2.2 and 1.2 months in the progression disease cases (P=0.29), the DCR was 54.5% and 27.3% in two group, respectively (P=0.26).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Re-administration of TKI seems to be a potential therapeutic option for treatment of selected advanced NSCLC patients after failure of geﬁtinib or erlotinib, especially for the patients with NSCLC who once responded from the prior TKI treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemotherapy, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou 310022, China; ; Key Laboratory Diagnosis and Treatment Technology on Thoracic Oncology, Hangzhou 310022, China.
authors.forename: Zhengbo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Xinmin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Chunxiao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Beibei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yiping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); efficacy; erlotinib; gefitinib; retreatment