A randomized phase II study of erlotinib plus nab-paclitaxel versus erlotinib alone as second-line therapy for Chinese patients with advanced EGFR wild-type non-small-cell lung cancer.

Erlotinib is a standard second-line therapy for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, its efficacy for those patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) wild-type (WT) tumors is undecided. In this randomized phase II study, NSCLC patients with EGFR-WT tumors, who had been treated with platinum-based chemotherapy but still developed disease progression, were assigned to receive second-line treatment of erlotinib plus nab-paclitaxel or erlotinib alone. We found PFS and OS were significantly improved by erlotinib plus nab-paclitaxel. The adverse events were also well tolerable.