City of Hope National Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Future Oncol. 2022 Sep;18(28):3125-3131. doi: 10.2217/fon-2022-0411. Epub 2022 Aug 8.
WHAT IS THIS SUMMARY ABOUT?: Afatinib can be used as a treatment for people with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma (shortened to SqCC) of the lung, after they have been treated with chemotherapy. Nowadays, people with SqCC are treated with medicines other than chemotherapy alone first, such as pembrolizumab combined with chemotherapy. The authors of this article wanted to know whether afatinib works well and is safe to take as a follow-up treatment after initial treatment with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy was stopped because it was no longer effective, caused too many side effects, or for other reasons. This 'real-world' study focused on how long people were treated with afatinib or chemotherapy as follow-up treatment, and whether they had any side effects. It is called a real-world study because it looks at the treatments people received as part of their everyday treatment in the clinic. This is different from a randomized controlled trial in which people with similar characteristics are randomly assigned to receive different treatments so that those treatments can be compared.
WHAT WERE THE RESULTS?: After initial treatment with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy, people receiving follow-up treatment with afatinib continued taking the drug for about 7 months on average, which is similar to what researchers expected. People who were treated with chemotherapy instead of afatinib as follow-up treatment stayed on treatment for about 4 months. People treated with afatinib had side effects that could be managed, without too many severe side effects linked to the immune system.
WHAT DO RESULTS OF THE STUDY MEAN?: The length of time people stay on treatment is important because treatment is generally stopped if the cancer progresses or if side effects become too hard to tolerate. Therefore, a longer time on treatment suggests it is working against the cancer without causing too many side effects. Overall, this study shows that afatinib could be an option for people who have already been treated for metastatic SqCC with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy.
这项研究总结了什么？：阿法替尼可用于治疗接受化疗后转移性鳞状非小细胞肺癌（简称 SqCC）的患者。目前，SqCC 患者的治疗方法是在单独化疗之外，首先使用其他药物，如帕博利珠单抗联合化疗。本文作者想知道阿法替尼作为初始治疗（因疗效不佳、副作用太大或其他原因停止使用帕博利珠单抗联合化疗）后的后续治疗是否有效且安全。这项“真实世界”研究主要关注阿法替尼或化疗作为后续治疗的持续时间，以及患者是否有任何副作用。之所以称之为“真实世界”研究，是因为它观察了患者在临床治疗中实际接受的治疗方法。这与随机对照试验不同，后者是根据患者的相似特征随机分配接受不同的治疗，以便对这些治疗方法进行比较。
研究结果如何？：在接受帕博利珠单抗联合化疗的初始治疗后，接受阿法替尼后续治疗的患者平均继续接受该药物治疗约 7 个月，这与研究人员的预期相似。接受化疗而非阿法替尼作为后续治疗的患者平均继续治疗约 4 个月。接受阿法替尼治疗的患者出现了可以控制的副作用，没有太多与免疫系统相关的严重副作用。
研究结果意味着什么？：患者的治疗持续时间很重要，因为如果癌症进展或副作用变得难以忍受，通常会停止治疗。因此，更长的治疗时间表明它对癌症有效而不会引起太多副作用。总体而言，这项研究表明，阿法替尼可能是已经接受帕博利珠单抗联合化疗治疗转移性 SqCC 的患者的一种选择。
