Tarceva 100mg

Tarceva 100 mg is an anti-cancer drug, tyrosine kinase inhibitor that comes in the form of double convex white or yellowish pills with an inscription and an orange original logo on one side. The main active substance of this drug is erlotinib hydrochloride, and the auxiliary substances are: sodium lauryl sulfate, magnesium stearate, sodium starch glycolate, lactose monohydrate, microcrystalline cellulose.
Due to the active substance called erlotinib, this anti-cancer drug strongly inhibits the sub-cellular phosphorylation of epidermal growth factor receptor HER1 /EGFR, impedes the growth of cancer cell lines or leads to their death.

Indications for use.

Tarceva 100 mg is prescribed for the treatment of non-small cell lung or pancreas cancer (either locally developed or metastatic).
Dosage and features of use.
The drug should be taken orally once a day (at least 1 hour before or 2 hours after the meal). In case of non-small cell lung cancer, you should take 150 mg of the drug (for a long time), for pancreas cancer– 100 mg of the drug every day (for a long time, in combination with gemcitabine).
The treatment with Tarceva 100 mg should be stopped, if you noticed the symptoms of disease progress; you should also reconsider the further treatment, if you notice rash within 4-8 weeks of treatment.
You should consider changing the dose in case of auxiliary therapy with substrates and CYP3A4 modulators. If necessary, the drug dose can be gradually reduced to 50 mg.

According to world statistics, lung cancer remains today the most common malignant neoplasm (1.6 million new cases per year) after non-melanoma skin cancer and the leading cause of cancer mortality.

Numerous studies have shown that combined platinum-containing chemotherapy can increase life expectancy, improve control of the disease symptoms and the quality of life of patients with NSCLC. To date, the achievements of modern chemotherapy have reached a certain peak without a tendency to further growth. The main directions of further studies of cytotoxic drugs are: increasing efficacy, reducing toxicity, maximizing the quality of life, and applying the latest advances in pharmacogenomics in creating new drugs and creating therapeutic “hybrids” that have the ability to maximize cytoreduction, followed by long-term targeting.

One of these drugs is Tarceva. Joint development and study of the drug is carried out by OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (USA), Genentech Inc. and F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. ( Switzerland).
When Tarceva applied, there was a significant improvement in the quality of life of patients compared with standard regimens of chemotherapy, both in terms of physical and functional status, and prolonging the period before the onset of clinical symptoms worsening.

Tarceva monoregime (150 mg daily) and in combination with other targeted drugs opens up new possibilities in the treatment of patients with locally advanced and metastatic NSCLC resistant to standard chemotherapy of the I-II line. Active study of Tarceva in various directions continues.