Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 11|pp 5066—5074

Efficacy of first-line tyrosine kinase inhibitor between unresectable stage III and stage IV EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer patients

Yang Liu¹, Huan-Wei Liang¹, Xin-Bin Pan¹

¹Department of Radiation Oncology, Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital, Nanning 530021, Guangxi, P.R. China

Received: March 30, 2023Accepted: May 27, 2023Published: June 8, 2023

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204781

Copyright: © 2023 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Purpose: To compare survivals between unresectable stage III and stage IV EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving first-line EGFR-TKI.

Materials and methods: Unresectable stage III and stage IV EGFR-mutated NSCLC patients were investigated from September 2012 to May 2022. Patients received EGFR-TKI as the first-line treatment. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method and propensity score matching (PSM) analyses.

Results: A total of 558 patients were included: 478 (85.66%) patients were stage IV and 80 (14.34%) patients were stage III. Before PSM, stage III patients showed a better median PFS (15 vs. 13 months; P=0.026) and a similar median OS (29 vs. 30 months; P=0.820) compared to stage IV patients. Stage IV was an independent prognostic factor for PFS [hazard ratio (HR)=1.47, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06-2.04; P=0.021], but not for OS (HR=1.11, 95% CI: 0.77-1.60; P=0.560). After PSM, a better median PFS (15 vs. 12 months; P=0.016) and a similar median OS (29 vs. 30 months; P=0.960) were found between stage III and stage IV patients.

Conclusions: OS was similar between unresectable stage III and stage IV EGFR-mutated NSCLC patients receiving EGFR-TKI as the first-line treatment.