Background: Lung cancer is a disease that severely endangers human health. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 4/5 of lung cancers.
Aims: To investigate the efficacy of early combination of local radiotherapy and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) for advanced NSCLC treated with icotinib.
Methods: Forty-two patients with stage IV NSCLC complicated with EGFR gene mutation were selected and randomly divided into two groups, with 21 patients in each group. Patients in control group were treated with icotinib, and patients in experimental group were treated with icotinib combined with local radiotherapy and subcutaneous injection of GM-CSF. One-year progression free survival between two groups was compared.
Results: Three months after treatment, the efficacy in experimental group was significantly better than that in control group, and objective response rate was 95.24% in experimental group, which was higher than the 71.43% in control group. Patients in experimental group had no differences in white blood cell and neutrophil, but had significantly lower carcino-embryonic antigen and neuron-specific enolase levels and higher CD3+, CD4+, and CD4+/CD8+ than those in control group and before treatment. There were no differences in the proportion of patients with adverse reactions between two groups. One-year progression free survival was significantly better in experimental group than in control group.
Conclusions: Early combination of local radiotherapy and GM-CSF has a significant efficacy for advanced NSCLC accounts for approximately 4/5 of lung cancers treated with icotinib, and it can improve patients' autoimmunity and lengthen progression free survival.
Keywords: Icotinib; Immune indexes; Local radiotherapy; Non-small cell lung cancer; Tumor markers.