Objective: Our study aimed to evaluate the main factors affecting the efficacy of anlotinib to determine the therapeutically dominant populations.
Methods: The medical records of patients with lung cancer who were treated with anlotinib from July 2018 to February 2020 at Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University were retrospectively reviewed. The optimal cutoff prognostic nutritional index (PNI) value for predicting efficacy was determined according to receiver operating characteristic curves. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated and compared using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. The prognostic values of each variable were evaluated with univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses.
Results: The overall disease control rate of 44 patients with lung cancer was 93.2% (41/44). The median PFS was 5.0 months (95% [confidence interval] CI: 2.2-7.8), and the median OS was 6.5 months (95% CI: 3.6-9.3). The multivariate analysis results indicated that hand-foot syndrome and high PNI values were independent protective factors of PFS and OS.
Conclusions: Anlotinib was effective in treating locally advanced or advanced lung cancer. High pretreatment PNI scores and the presence of hand-foot syndrome after treatment were independent prognostic markers for favorable OS and PFS.
Keywords: Lung cancer; anlotinib; hand–foot syndrome; prognostic factor; prognostic nutritional index; therapeutically dominant population.