Treatment tactics of non-small-cell lung cancer with erlotinib: literature review and description of a clinical case

Erlotinib is a small-molecule inhibitor of EGFR tyrosine kinase domain, which has shown effectiveness in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with activating EGFR mutation. A number of large randomized studies have shown a significant increase in survival without progression in the use of erlotinib and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors in comparison with standard chemotherapy. At the same time, there were no differences in the overall survival rate, which is due to the high frequency of tyrosine kinase inhibitors use in subsequent therapy lines in patients who had progression during the first-line chemotherapy. At the same time, this retrospective study showed an obvious (more than doubling) increase in the overall survival rate of patients receiving treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors as compared to historical control. There were no significant differences between the first and second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Mutation of T790M is one of the main mechanisms of resistance to erlotinib. When progressing against the background of erlotinib treatment, the third generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib is effective in case of T790M mutation detection. The combination of erlotinib with bevacizumab leads to an increase in survival without progression, without affecting the overall survival rate. The combined use of chemotherapy and tyrosine kinase inhibitors requires further study. An example of a long-term effect on the background of erlotinib treatment in a patient with non-small-cell lung cancer of stage IV with EGFR mutation is given. The total duration of treatment was 68 months, including the therapy with erlotinib in combination with bevacizumab and local radiation therapy on the progression zone (rib metastasis), which lasted for 21 months against the background of the indolent course of the disease