EGFR TKIs as maintenance therapy in NSCLC: Finding the old in the new INFORMation

Data from phase III studies indicate that a consistent proportion of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with front-line chemotherapy, at the time of progression, are not able to receive additional therapies mainly because of worsening clinical conditions related to a rapid tumor growth (1,2). An important clinical end-point, particularly for patients with aggressive tumors, is to guarantee that the vast majority of patients could be treated with drugs that, in second-line setting, demonstrated to prolong survival, preserving quality of life and delaying disease-related symptoms. Beyond any semantic questions about the type of agent employed (i.e. continuation maintenance versus switch maintenance), the use of an effective drug in the absence of disease progression following platinum-based chemotherapy means maintenance therapy. During the last few years, several studies (1-4) have been conducted in metastatic NSCLC to assess the role of maintenance therapy.