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Targeted therapies

Afatinib—new therapy option for EGFR-mutant lung cancer

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 10, pages 551–552 (2013)Cite this article

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Key Points

  • Afatinib improves progression-free survival compared with cisplatin and pemetrexed as first- line treatment for patients with EGFR mutant lung cancers

  • Afatinib monotherapy has limited efficacy in patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancers with disease progression on erlotinib or gefitinib

  • Erlotinib, gefitinib and afatinib are all viable treatment options for the first-line treatment of patients with EGFR-mutant non-small-cell lung cancers

On 15 July 2013, the FDA approved afatinib as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer whose tumours harbour exon 19 deletions or exon 21 (L858R) EGFR substitution mutations. We discuss three recent studies investigating afatinib in this molecular subset of patients.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Solid Tumor Oncology, Department of Medicine, Thoracic Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, 300 East 66th Street, New York, 10065, NY, USA

    Helena A. Yu

  2. Division of Hematology/Oncology, Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, 777 Preston Research Building, 2220 Pierce Avenue, Nashville, 37212, TN, USA

    William Pao

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  1. Helena A. Yu
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Correspondence to William Pao.

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Competing interests

W. Pao has consulted for the following companies: MolecularMD, AstraZeneca, Bristol–Myers Squibb, Symphony Evolution, Exelixis and Clovis Oncology. He has received research funding from the following companies: Enzon, Xcovery, AstraZeneca and Symphogen. The rights to EGFR T790M testing were licensed on behalf of William Pao by Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center to MolecularMD. H. Yu declares no competing interests.

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Yu, H., Pao, W. Afatinib—new therapy option for EGFR-mutant lung cancer. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 10, 551–552 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2013.154

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