Efficacy of apatinib plus pemetrexed for advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer in elderly patients / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Objective: To examine the efficacy and safety of pemetrexed plus apatinib for the treatment of advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in elderly patients. Methods: Between January 2016 and June 2017, 38 elderly patients with ad-vanced non-squamous NSCLC from Qingdao Municipal Hospital were examined. All patients received first-or second-line therapy. The inclusion criteria were an age of≥65 years, physical status score of 0-2, and expected survival time of>3 months. Eighteen patients were assigned to the test group, and the remaining 20 patients were assigned to the control group. The patients in the test group were treated with pemetrexed plus apatinib, pemetrexed 500 mg/m2 on day 1 and apatinib 250 mg/d on days 1-21. The control group re-ceived pemetrexed in a 21-day cycle until the disease progressed or intolerable adverse reactions developed. The study was reviewed and approved by the medical ethics committee of Qingdao Municipal Hospital. Results: The disease control rates in the test and con-trol groups were 72.2% and 35%, respectively, with a statistically significant difference (χ2=5.265, P=0.022). The median progression-free survival time (PFS) in the test and control groups were 5.7 months [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.8-8.6] and 3.1 months (95% CI2.7-3.5), with a statistically significant difference (χ2=4.01, P=0.045). The difference in the incidence of hand-foot syndrome and hyper-tension between the two groups was statistically significant (P=0.007 and P=0.016, respectively), with side effects of 1 or 2 degree in most cases, which was acceptable. Conclusions: Pemetrexed plus apatinib has a definite curative effect on advanced NSCLC, with con-trollable adverse reactions.