Treatment outcome of nimotuzumab plus chemotherapy in advanced cancer patients: a single institute experience

Nimotuzumab is a humanized anti-EGFR IgG1 monoclonal antibody and demonstrates a better safety profile than other anti-EGFR antibodies due to its intermediate affinity. Since it was approved in China for the treatment of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC), it has been widely used in NPC and in many clinical trials for other cancer types. However, the optimal dose and administration frequency of nimotuzumab that should be used and which kind of cancer patients will be more benefited from nimotuzumab is still unknown. In this retrospective study, 205 advanced cancer patients with colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer, head and neck cancer, gastric cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, or other cancers from mainland China, treated with nimotuzumab in combination with chemotherapy, were enrolled. Over 60% of these patients received nimotuzumab > 6 doses and ≥ 400 mg/week as maintenance therapy. It was well tolerated in real-life patients. This report demonstrates that age, sex and previous treatment might be potential predictive factors for survival, and patients received nimotuzumab > 6 doses and > 200 mg/week might benefit more from nimotuzumab therapy. Using these factors for stratification analysis may form a predictive differential clinical strategy for nimotuzumab to maximize the benefit in patients with different epithelial tumors.