Trial Information

PharmacoEconomic Assessment IRESSA® in the Treatment of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) : A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis and Cost-Utility Analysis

Patients with late-stage NSCLC are often symptomatic, with specific pulmonary problems (eg,
cough, breathlessness, hemoptysis) and general symptoms (eg. fatigue, weight loss) that can
cause extreme distress to the patient. Therefore, improvements in disease-related symptoms
and quality of life (QoL) are the key desired outcomes of medical management.7 Effective,
palliative, low-toxicity with reasonable treatment cost for patients with advanced NSCLC are
needed. Recently, more and more countries consider evidence of economic value along with
clinical efficacy.

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a promising target for anticancer therapy
because it is expressed or highly expressed in a variety of tumors, including NSCLC. 8,9
Furthermore, high levels of EGFR expression have been associated with a poor prognosis in
lung cancer patients in several studies. 10-12 EGFR-targeted cancer therapies are currently
being developed; strategies include inhibition of the intracellular tyrosine kinase domain
of the receptor by small molecules such as gefitinib (Iressa [ZD1839]; AstraZeneca,
Wilmington, DE).13 Iressa is an orally active, selective EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor that
blocks signal transduction pathways implicated in the proliferation and survival of cancer
cells.