Erlotinib Versus Gemcitabine/Cisplatin as (Neo)Adjuvant Treatment in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Concurrent Chemoradiation therapy remain the standard treatment for stage IIIA disease, but its treatment-related life threaten toxicity limit its use for those pts. Tarceva monotherapy have been demonstrated a significant improvement in overall survival and disease progression free survival when used for the treatment of patients with metastatic NSCLC, after failure of at least one prior chemotherapy regimen. It is well tolerated without the side effects usually associated with chemotherapy. Based on the encouraging results reported from the SLCG phase II study reported the efficacy of Tarceva as first line treatment for metastatic NSCLC with EGFR mutation patients would prolong overall survival, delay disease progression and be well tolerated, mOS reached 27 months, ORR reached 71%. Besides, with different mechanism and more tolerable than chemo, Tarceva may provide an important treatment alternative for local advanced pts with EGFR mutation. In IPASS study (gefitinib or carboplatin/paclitaxel in pulmonary adenocarcinoma as first line treatment), the subgroup of 261 patients who were positive for the epidermal growth factor receptor gene (EGFR) mutation, progression-free survival was significantly longer among those who received gefitinib than among those who received carboplatin-paclitaxel (hazard ratio for progression or death, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.64; P\<0.001). In OPTIMAL study (first-line erlotinib versus carboplatin/gemcitabine in Chinese advanced NSCLC patients with EGFR activating mutations), the primary analysis showed PFS was significantly prolonged with erlotinib vs carboplatin/paclitaxel(13.1months vs 4.6 months, HR 0.16 ; p\<0.0001). The objective response rate was significantly improved with erlotinib vs carboplatin/paclitaxel (83% vs 36%, p=0.0000), as was the disease control rate (CR + PR + SD; 96 vs 82%; p=0.002). The aim of this study is to investigate the efficacy and safety of Tarceva versus combination of Gemcitabine plus Cisplatin as neoadjuvant treatment in patients with stage IIIA- N2 NSCLC with EGFR activating mutation in exon 19 or 21.