Important therapeutic advances for patients with advanced non-small cell lung
cancer (NSCLC) have recently occurred, and the development of targeted therapy
has revolutionized the treatment of these patients. We report the case of an
NSCLC patient with unknown EGFR mutation status who developed resistance to
erlotinib and was treated with afatinib. After 19 months of therapy with
afatinib, the patient is still in treatment and maintains stable disease.
Emerging resistance to reversible TKIs is a significant problem. Oral
irreversible TKIs such as afatinib may offer an effective treatment option after
failure with reversible TKIs.
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