tarceva

Is Tarceva only effective if the person has the EGFR mutation in the lung tumour?Can it be used with other chemos even if the tumour does not have the mutation.How do you test the tumour?

[HeinrikMD]

Hi,

This is an interesting question and I am glad that you are doing your reading.

There is currently no pre-test that would guarantee a response with Tarceva. While the drug was designed with the EGFR pathway in mind, as it turns out there is a network of pathways that may run parallel, hence the status of how many copies of EGFR there are in the cancer DNA or the expression of EGFR protein (or mutation patterns) have not shown consistent results.

Among the factors on the cancer, the adenocarcinoma (a subtype of lung cancer) seems to be more responsive to Tarceva (but there is also a significant for others not in this category).

Patient factors have also been evaluated and among these there are some that seem to increase the benefit with the drug. Patients who are not smokers, female, of Asian descent tend to have a bigger response with the drug (but there is also a significant for others not in this category).

Hence at present, the clear use of Tarceva would be for patients with lung cancer who are no longer benefiting from their chemotherapy.