Summary

In previous studies, gefitinib combined with chemotherapy has provided no survival gain compared with chemotherapy alone for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, a phase 3 trial has shown that sequential therapy with gefitinib may offer clinical benefit after platinum-based doublet chemotherapy in this setting. The West Japan Thoracic Oncology Group trial [WJTOG 0203; NCT00144066] involved patients who were randomly assigned to 3–6 cycles of chemotherapy alone (298 patients) or to 3 cycles of chemotherapy followed by daily gefitinib until disease progression (300 patients).