A clinical study by Dr. Kumar Prabhash and his team was published in JCO in the month of August 2019 which concluded that adding pemetrexed and carboplatin chemotherapy to gefitinib significantly prolonged PFS and OS but increased toxicity in patients with NSCLC.

This was a phase III randomised trial in patients with advanced NSCLC harboring an EGFR-sensitising mutation and a performance status of 0 to 2.

Dr Kumar Prabhash's commentry

In EGFR mutation positive lung cancer TKI is better than chemotherapy. This study shows that the disease can be controlled better with TKI and chemotherapy as compared with TKI alone. At present other options which control the disease with similar effect is TKI (osimertinib).

We know that osimertinib works in second line setting also.This brings the discussion of appropriate sequencing of treatment in clinic.Due to cost implication only less than 5% patients can take this drug (osimertinib).

As compared this combination used in this study can be used by almost any patient in our country. This highlights the development of treatment in the country which is as effective as the treatment which is very costly and only 5% of patients can take it.

To access the original article abstract click this link: https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.19.01154