Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKIs) such as erlotinib have proved effective in second or third line therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC).It is well tolerated without the side effects usually associated with chemotherapy. The mutations in EGFR exons 19 or 21 have been reported to be associated with efficacy of EGFR TKIs.Based on the encouraging preliminary results from the Spanish lung cancer group' prospective study reported that the efficacy of Tarceva as first line treatment for metastatic NSCLC patients with EGFR mutation would delay disease progression,prolong overall survival and be well tolerated, medium Progression-free survival(PFS) was around 12 months and OS reach 24 months,our study is designed to compare PFS between the patients with mutant EGFR treated by gemcitabine/carboplatin and those by erlotinib in the first-line setting. We assumed 11 months of PFS on Tarceva arm versus 6 months on chemotherapy arm with a=0.025(alpha-spend for an interim analysis), 80% power and 12 months enrolment period, 12 months FU duration to calculate the sample size. The sample size is 69 pairs. Considering about 10% drop-out rate, the final sample size is 152 patients.So, chemo-naive staged IIIb/IV patients with EGFR mutations in exon 19 or 21 will be enrolled into this open-label, randomized,multicenter phase III study.
Name: erlotinib
Name: gemcitabine/carboplatin
Allocation: Randomized
Parallel Assignment
There is one SNP
2. EGFR exon19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutation by the DNA direct PCR sequencing using fresh tumor sample or paraffin embed tumor sample. --- L858R ---