EGFR Inhibitors in Women and Men

Article

Throughout their development over the past years, the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors Iressa (gefitinib) and Tarceva (erlotinib) have been identified as seeming to be particularly helpful in women compared with men. Only Tarceva is commercially available in the US, but Iressa is widely used in other parts of the world, including Asia, where it continues to be avidly used and studied. Both of these drugs have a consistently higher response rate in women, which has led to some different use patterns in women and men.

Are EGFR Inhibitors Only Useful in Certain Patient Groups?

Article

Since the earliest clinical trials of EGFR inhibitors in NSCLC, certain clinically defined patient subsets became identified as more likely to show a benefit than others. Such studies suggested that women, patients with adenocarcinomas rather than squamous cell carcinomas, Asian patients, and never-smokers compared with current or former smokers were the patients who would do well with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors like gefitinib (Iressa) or erlotinib (Tarceva).

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