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WCLC 2025 | The emerging role of drug holidays in the management of lung cancer
Qing Zhou, MD, PhD, Guangdong Lung Cancer Institute, Guangzhou, China, comments on the concept of drug holiday in lung cancer treatment. A drug holiday can be a viable option for patients with EGFR mutation-positive lung cancer, particularly those who achieve minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity after combining local treatment with systemic therapy, allowing for a temporary pause in treatment while maintaining drug sensitivity. This interview took place at 2025 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Barcelona, Spain.
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Transcript
The drug holiday is a very new concept. We just discussed a lot during the session. So I think the drug holiday means when the patient gets dramatic benefit from systemic treatment, and actually we must achieve some criteria. For example, we can combine the local treatment together and the patient can get the test, for example the MRD negative and the patient can receive the local treatment...
The drug holiday is a very new concept. We just discussed a lot during the session. So I think the drug holiday means when the patient gets dramatic benefit from systemic treatment, and actually we must achieve some criteria. For example, we can combine the local treatment together and the patient can get the test, for example the MRD negative and the patient can receive the local treatment. Especially for the EGFR mutation positive population, after the patient gets dramatic benefit from the EGFR TKI and we can combine the radiotherapy or surgery and the patient achieves the MRD negative, we can give the patient drug holiday. And during the holiday, the patient can keep the drug sensitive and also keep a very high quality of life. And if the patient’s drug holiday is over, we can re-challenge the same EGFR-TKI before the drug holiday. And we can see we can achieve a very high secondary response and second PFS. So I think maybe the drug holiday is a very good concept for both doctors and for patients. But we must point out that the drug holiday can only be used in highly selected populations.
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