Front-line erlotinib in unselected patient with advanced NSCLC followed by standard chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin - TORCH study

Result from BR. 21 study demonstrated that in unselected patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) pretreated with standard first-line or second-line chemotherapy, subsequent erlotinib treatment prolonged overall survival (OS) as compared to placebo (1). Erlotinib was evaluated as front-line therapy for unselected patients with advanced NSCLC. In a phase II study of erlotinib in NSCLC patients, Giaccone et al. (2) demonstrated a tumor response rate of 22.7% and a median overall survival of 391 days. In elderly patients treated with frontline erlotinib, the response rate was 10%, and median timeto- progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) were 3.5 and 10.9 months respectively (3).