Is there a role for epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition in the treatment of advanced esophagogastric tumours?

Advanced esophagogastric cancers are aggressive malignancies with an extremely poor prognosis. Palliative chemotherapy remains disappointing, with median survival of <12 months in first line clinical trials. Overexpression of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) in up to 80% of these cancers led to clinical trials testing the addition of EGFR-inhibitors (EGFR-I) to standard chemotherapy. Here we provide a perspective on the recent CALGB 80403 (Alliance)/E1206 trial publication which compared the safety and efficacy of three chemotherapy regimens combined with cetuximab and discuss its clinical practice implications. We identified relevant published data for discussion using a PubMed based search strategy and through the reference lists of identified studies. We focused our discussion mainly on the randomised trials that pertained to esophageal and esophagogastric junction tumours to match the population of the study in focus in this perspective.