As a descriptive comparison only, considering the obvious limitations, the PFS achieved in this study with gefitinib (9.9 months) was within the range reported in the clinical trials carried out with gefitinib in Asian patients with advanced NSCLC [16, 40, 41] and the PFS data reported with gefitinib in a European population of Caucasian patients with advanced NSCLC harbouring EGFR mutations [18]. Here, EGFR is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.