Objective: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. Central nervous system (CNS) metastasis is a prevalent and serious complication. The most common treatment for brain metastasis (BM) is still radiation therapy (RT). An increasing number of drugs have been shown to have intracranial activity or to sensitize tumours to radiotherapy.
Methods: Consecutive advanced multiline therapy failure in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with BM at the authors' hospital were retrospectively reviewed. Eligible patients were divided into two groups: Apatinib+RT group and RT group. Intracranial progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were analysed using the Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: The median intracranial PFS for the RT group and Apatinib+RT group was 5.83 months and 11.81 months (p = 0.034). The median OS for the RT group and Apatinib+RT group was 9.02 months and 13.62 months (p = 0.311). The Apatinib+RT group had a better intracranial PFS, but there were no significant differences between the two arms in OS. The Apatinib+RT group had significantly reduced symptoms caused by BM.
Conclusion: RT combined with apatinib could help to control intracranial metastases. The Apatinib+RT group had significantly reduced symptoms caused by BM and improved quality of life for patients, the safety of the two treatments was similar.
Advances in knowledge: Here, we propose that RT combined with apatinib can significantly relieve brain symptoms and tolerate side-effects without affecting OS in patients with BM following failure of multiline therapy for NSCLC. Of course, this paper is a retrospective origin study, and more powerful evidence is needed to demonstrate.