Tarceva: improve the survival of advance and non small cell lung cancer patients

In year 2004, The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a Tarceva for the treatment of advance non small cell lung cancer, a pill to treat a lung cancer patient. Tarceva was approved for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, who have failed to respond to at least one prior of chemotherapy. Scientist study shows that it delayed the progression of advanced lung cancer and live longer when use as a single agent, those patients who did not progress following first line treatment.

Scientist study showing that Tarceva extended the patients with advanced non small cell lung cancer a clinical trials by a median of 6.7 months compared to 4.7 months for patients who got a placebo , 31 percent of the patients taking tarceva were still alive compared to 22 percent of those taking the placebo. Patients with non small cell lung treat with Tarceva had a 23%improvement in overall survival compared with patients who received placebo. Based on Saturn date show that patients with advanced non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received Tarceva as a first-line maintenance treatment had a 41% improvement in the time they lived without the disease advancing (progression-free survival or PFS) compared to placebo.

For those patient’s tumours did not have an EGFR mutation, It show a 30% improvement in survival. The majority of patients with NSCLC do not have EGFR mutation and are known as EGFR wild-type.

Tarceva is a small molecule inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), is currently marketed for the lung cancer treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (2nd line NSCLC) after the first line treatment failure of at least one prior chemotherapy regimen and pancreatic cancer.

 Previously, Tarceva had competed with AstraZeneca’s drug Geftinib, Geftinib (Iressa) drug was approved for the same treatment. But the drug show in a study was unsuccessful in improving survival. Gefitinib is non longer an active option for non-small cell lung cancer patients.

Recently, based on Roche Group  study show that patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received Avastin  (bevacizumab) and Tarceva  (erlotinib) as combined first-line maintenance treatment had show positive result with  39 %t improvement.