title: Survival of patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma before and after approved use of gefitinib in China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To compare the overall survival (OS) of patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma in China before and after the approved use of gefitinib, and analyze clinical factors that may affect OS.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinical data of 558 patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma who received chemotherapy from January 2002 to December 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the matched-pair case-control study design, 255 patients who only received chemotherapy and 255 patients who received gefitinib treatment after its approval were stringently matched by age, gender, and smoking history and enrolled in the study. Clinical factors including age, gender, smoking history, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS), tumor stage, organ metastasis, and the number of prior chemotherapies were analyzed to determine their correlations with OS.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median survival time (MST) of the 510 enrolled patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma was 22.8 months. The MST of the patients who received gefitinib treatment was significantly longer than that of patients who did not receive gefitinib treatment (33.5 vs. 14.1 months, P < 0.001). The OS in patients who received gefitinib treatment was significantly longer than in patients who did not receive gefitinib treatment in almost all clinical factor-based subgroups, including age, gender, smoking history, ECOG PS 0-1, tumor stage, the presence or absence of lung, pleural, bone, brain, adrenal gland and liver metastasis, and the number of prior chemotherapies (all P < 0.001), except in the ECOG PS ≥2 subgroup.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gefitinib treatment significantly improved the survival of patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma in China.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Tao
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xue-Zhi
authors.initials: XZ
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jun-Ling
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xing-Sheng
authors.initials: XS
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zi-Ping
authors.initials: ZP
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hong-Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Hong
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiang-Ru
authors.initials: XR
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute/Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clinical Study on Anticancer Molecular Targeted Drugs Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yuan-Kai
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Shi
keywords: Adenocarcinoma; chemotherapy; gefitinib; non-small cell lung cancer