Treatment on advanced NSCLC: Platinum-based chemotherapy plus erlotinib or platinum-based chemotherapy alone? A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the potential of erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy relative to platinum-based chemotherapy alone for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Search of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CBM, CNKI, China Wan Fang databases and the Cochrane library was performed for studies regarding erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC published between 1 January 2000 and 28 August 2014. We identified eight eligible studies including 3,363 patients with advanced NSCLC. For PFS measure, an HR of 0.73 (0.58–0.93) with statistical significance was estimated when erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy compared with platinum-based chemotherapy alone; objective response rate of 32.86 versus 24.85 % was obtained for both groups, respectively. HR of 0.93 (0.86–1.00) with P of 0.170 was calculated for OS. We concluded that the erlotinib plus chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC could increase PFS and objective response rate, but not benefit OS.