Efficiency of low dosage apatinib in post-first-line treatment of advanced lung adenocarcinoma

// Da-Xiong Zeng 1, * , Chang-Guo Wang 1, * , Wei Lei 1 , Jian-An Huang 1 and Jun-Hong Jiang 1 1 Department of Respiratory and Critical Care, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Jun-Hong Jiang, email: jiang20001969@163.com Keywords: lung cancer, apatinib, adenocarcinoma, VEGFR-2, EGFR wild-type Received: March 29, 2017      Accepted: June 30, 2017      Published: August 03, 2017 ABSTRACT Chemotherapy is the standard treatment of in advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients without driver mutation. However, few drugs could be selected when diseases progressed after second-line treatment. As a small molecule inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2), apatinib was suggested mainly using in advanced gastric cancer. In this study, we showed the results of apatinib as second-line to fourth-line treatment in EGFR wild-type advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients. 16 EGFR wild-type advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients were administrated apatinib (250-500 mg/d) orally. 3 patients showed partial response and 8 patients showed stable diseases response to apatinib, with a medium progression-free survival (PFS) of 4.4 month (2-10 months). The objective remission rate (ORR) was 18.75%(3/16). The total disease control rate (DCR) was 68.75% (11/16). The main toxicities were hypertension, hand-foot syndrome, proteinuria and thrombocytopenia which were tolerable and manageable. So, apatinib might be an optional choice for post-first-line treatment of EGFR wild-type advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients.