Second-line therapy in elderly patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer.

There is no dedicated study on second-line treatment for elderly patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We report the results on second-line erlotinib therapy from our previously published phase III study comparing single-agent therapy with platinum-based doublet (carboplatin plus paclitaxel) therapy in 451 elderly patients. Erlotinib was given to patients exhibiting disease progression or experiencing excessive toxicity during first-line therapy, until further progression or unacceptable toxicity. In total, 292 (64.7%) patients received erlotinib as second-line therapy. Initial performance status 0-1, stage IV NSCLC and an Activities of Daily Living score of 6 were independent factors for receiving erlotinib. Median (95% CI) overall survival was 4 (3.2-6.7) versus 6.8 (5.0-8.3) months in the single-agent and doublet arms, respectively (p=0.089). Performance status 0-1, never having smoked, adenocarcinoma and weight loss ≤5% were favourable independent prognostic factors of survival, whereas the randomisation arm had no significant impact. Among the 292 patients who received erlotinib, 60 (20.5%) experienced grade 3-4 toxic effects, the most frequent being rash. Erlotinib as second-line therapy is feasible, leading to efficacy results similar to those obtained in a previous randomised study that was not dedicated to elderly patients, with acceptable toxicity.

Prognostic value of health-related quality of life for overall survival in elderly non-small-cell lung cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: We investigated whether the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) score is a prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) in elderly patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: We included 451 NSCLC patients aged 70-89 years enrolled in the Intergroupe Francophone de Cancérologie Thoracique 0501 trial, using scores of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 at baseline to investigate the prognostic value of HRQoL for OS, in addition to conventional factors. Cox regression model was used for both univariate and multivariate analyses of OS. RESULTS: Global health status (GH) dimension score at baseline was associated with favourable OS when adjusted for clinical, functional, and histological factors (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.986; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.980-0.992). We distinguished three groups according to GH score: high (GH <46), intermediate (46 ≤ GH ≤ 67), and low (GH >67) mortality risk. The median OS values were 14.5, 8.2, and 5.3 months in the low-, intermediate-, and high-risk categories, respectively (log-rank P <0.0001). In the high-risk group, doublet chemotherapy was not associated with favourable OS (HR: 0.70; 95% CI: 0.49-1.003; P=0.052), whereas in the intermediate- and low-risk groups, doublet chemotherapy was associated with favourable OS (HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.54-0.96; P=0.023 and HR: 0.50; 95% CI: 0.30-0.84; P=0.0089, respectively). CONCLUSION: This study supports the additional prognostic value of HRQoL data at diagnosis to identify vulnerable subpopulations in elderly NSCLC patients. HRQoL could thus be valuable in selecting patients who will benefit from doublet chemotherapy.