A Multicenter Randomized Phase III Study Comparing Second-line Treatment With Chemotherapy Associated or Not to Erlotinib in NSCLC Patients With Secondary Resistance to TKI-EGFR

The current first line treatment of patients with EGFR activating mutation lung cancer is EGFR TKI. Compared to platinum-based chemotherapy, EGFR-TKIs are superior in terms of response rate and progression-free survival. However, an acquired resistance occurs almost constantly. The second-line treatment includes platinum-based chemotherapy in the absence of contraindication. This chemotherapy is then administered after discontinuing EGFR TKIs. However, a rebound phenomenon of the disease was described in patients who discontinued EGFR TKIs. Some clinical teams therefore recommend, as a precaution, in order to avoid any withdrawal phenomenon, to never discontinue EGFR TKIs in patients developing an EGFR TKI acquired resistance. It seems therefore useful to conduct a study to better define the therapeutic strategy to adopt in patients developing an acquired resistance after having received EGFR TKIs as first line treatment.