Treatment on advanced NSCLC: Platinum-based chemotherapy plus erlotinib or platinum-based chemotherapy alone? A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the potential of erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy relative to platinum-based chemotherapy alone for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Search of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CBM, CNKI, China Wan Fang databases and the Cochrane library was performed for studies regarding erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC published between 1 January 2000 and 28 August 2014. We identified eight eligible studies including 3,363 patients with advanced NSCLC. For PFS measure, an HR of 0.73 (0.58-0.93) with statistical significance was estimated when erlotinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy compared with platinum-based chemotherapy alone; objective response rate of 32.86 versus 24.85 % was obtained for both groups, respectively. HR of 0.93 (0.86-1.00) with P of 0.170 was calculated for OS. We concluded that the erlotinib plus chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC could increase PFS and objective response rate, but not benefit OS.