Therapeutic efficacy of epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy in treatment of locally advanced cervical cancer

Background: There are few studies about epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody nimotuzumab for the treatment of locally advanced cervical cancer. We aimed to assess the therapeutic efficacy and analyse prognostic factors of chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab in cervical cancer (stage II IV ) . Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 23 patients with locally advanced cervical cancer(stage II IV ) ,who received concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab from 2012 to 2014 (the study group) ,and 30 patients with the similar baseline characteristics who received concurrent chemoradiotherapy alone (the control group). The overall response rates, 5year overall survival rates, progressionfree survival and acute adverse events of the two groups were compared .Multivariate prognostic analysis was performed by a Cox proportional hazards model. Results: The median follow-up time were 46 months (IQR 1660) in the study group and 42 months (260) in the control group.The overall response rates were 87% and 73.3% (P = 0.384) . The 5year overall survival rates were 63.6% and 36.1% (hazard ratio 2.208,95% CI 0.8785.557, P = 0.092) .The median progressionfree survival in the study group was not achieved (95%CI 955) versus 27 months (1-60) in the control group (hazard ratio 2.635, 95% CI 1.0306.737, P= 0.043).Multivariate prognostic analysis indicated that stage and whether to be combined with nimotuzumab were the influential factors for progressionfree survival time.Adverse events were similar between groups.The most common grade 3 or 4 adverse events during treatment in the study group versus the control group were leucopenia(9 [39%] vs 11 [36%]),thrombocytopenia (3 [13%] vs 6 [20%]),anaemia (4 [17%] vs 4 [13%]). Conclusions: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab in the treatment can improve the progressionfree survival time of advanced cervical cancer, while not increasing the incidence of adverse reactions.However, because of the small size of sample in this research, these findings suggest that it is necessary to perform a prospective study with expanded sample size.