Spotlight on afatinib and its potential in the treatment of squamous cell lung cancer: the evidence so far.
Compared to adenocarcinoma, fewer effective treatment options are available for advanced or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung. Afatinib is an orally administered, irreversible EGFR antagonist. As a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, it has been applied in the treatment of patients with EGFR-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer. Recently, several clinical trials have shown that afatinib leads to a significant improvement in progression-free survival and overall survival of patients with SCC. Moving forward, afatinib should be one of the options among tyrosine kinase inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, and cytotoxicity chemotherapy drugs for SCC.
Thoracic Oncology Program, Department of Surgery, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Tianjin Chest Hospital, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
Yijun
Y
Xu
Thoracic Oncology Program, Department of Surgery, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Vivianne W
VW
Ding
Tianjin Chest Hospital, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
Hong
H
Zhang
Tianjin Chest Hospital, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
Xun
X
Zhang
Thoracic Oncology Program, Department of Surgery, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
David
D
Jablons
Thoracic Oncology Program, Department of Surgery, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Biao
B
He
EGFR; ErbB; afatinib; non-small-cell lung cancer; squamous cell carcinoma; tyrosine kinase inhibitor