Clinical analysis of continuing crizotinib treatment beyond disease progression in ALK-positive non-small-cell lung cancer patients

Background

Continuing the treatment of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) after disease progression (PD) in EGFR-mutation NSCLC was reported promising in several studies, but rare research presented continued ALK-TKIs beyond PD in NSCLC. Thus, we retrospectively analyzed the continuation of crizotinib treatment beyond PD in ALK-positive patients.

Methods

The progression free survival (PFS, time from first crizotinib dose to first RECIST-defined PD), PFS2 (time from continuing crizotinib treatment beyond PD to drug withdrawal or death), overall survival (OS, time from first crizotinib dose to death), objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) were analyzed in this study. Patterns of PD were identified by patients underwent rapid radiographic/clinical disease progression or died within 3 months after PD.

Results

Of 108 patients screened, 53 patients got PD at the cutoff time. Median follow-up was 12.3 months. After PD, 23 patients discontinued crizotinib treatment and 30 patients continued. Baseline characteristics showed that continued ones had a better ECOG performance status than discontinued ones (P = 0.006). Patterns of PD was significantly different in two groups (P 

Conclusions

ALK-positive NSCLC may get clinical benefits from the continuation of crizotinib beyond PD, especially in those patients with brain or bone metastases.

Clinical trial identification

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Legal entity responsible for the study

Department of Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Medical School, Sichuan University

Funding

N/A

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.