Erlotinib and Chemotherapy for Patients With Stage IB-IIIA NSCLC With EGFR Mutations (ECON)

Chemotherapy and surgery in combination represents the standard of care for patients with resectable stage IB-IIIA NSCLC. However, the 5-year survival continues to be disappointing despite this standard of care. This study incorporates targeted therapy with an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) as part of a multimodality strategy for stage IB-IIIA resectable NSCLC tumors with a known EGFR activating mutation. The rationale for including only patients with EGFR mutations is based on recent data that reported that patients with advanced NSCLC whose tumor harbor EGFR activating mutations had an objective response rate of 71% with gefitinib compared with a 1% objective response rate in patients with EGFR wild-type tumors.