Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the treatment patterns and survival outcomes in patients with unresectable Stage III EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on patients with unresectable Stage III EGFR-mutated NSCLC spanning from 2012 to 2022. Treatment patterns were outlined, and survival comparisons between different treatment groups were performed using Kaplan-Meier methods.

Results: A total of 88 patients were included: 62.5% received TKI alone, 26.1% received TKI+chemotherapy, 4.5% received radiotherapy, 4.5% participated in clinical trials, and 2.4% received TKI+antiangiogenic drugs. Prior to propensity score matching, TKI+chemotherapy and TKI alone groups demonstrated similar progression-free survival (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.56, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.87-2.80; P = 0.134), overall survival (HR = 1.12, 95% CI: 0.59-2.13; P = 0.733), and locoregional-free survival (HR = 1.46; 95% CI: 0.75-2.81; P = 0.267). However, TKI+chemotherapy showed reduced distant metastasis-free survival compared to TKI alone (HR = 2.39, 95% CI: 1.11-5.18; P = 0.022). After propensity score matching, no significant differences were observed in progression-free survival (P = 0.435), overall survival (P = 0.205), locoregional-free survival (P = 0.706), and distant metastasis-free survival (P = 0.171) between the TKI+chemotherapy and TKI alone groups.

Conclusions: The addition of chemotherapy to TKI did not enhance survival outcomes compared to TKI monotherapy in patients with unresectable Stage III EGFR-mutated NSCLC.