Hydroxychloroquine and Gefitinib to Treat Lung Cancer
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2014-11-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common cause of cancer mortality in men and
women in Singapore.Chemotherapy and biologically targeted agents can extend survival only
modestly for these patients; therefore, discovery of novel ways to prolong the disease course
is a top research priority.
The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling pathway plays a central role in the
neoplastic transformation of NSCLC and promotes cancer cell survival, metastasis, and
angiogenesis. The predominance of EGFR signaling in NSCLC makes the pathway an attractive
candidate for the development of targeted therapeutics. Over the last three years, the FDA
has approved two drugs for salvage treatment of NSCLC, gefitinib (Iressa ®, formerly known as
ZD1839) and erlotinib (Tarceva ®, formerly known as OSI-774). Both are small molecule
orally-bioavailable tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) of the EGFR TK domain, and have been
shown to improve survival compared to placebo in asian patients when administered after
failure of first or second line chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC.