In addition, a head-to-head trial between icotinib and gefitinib as a second-line therapy for 68 NSCLC patients with EGFR activating mutations reported that icotinib (n = 29) was not inferior to gefitinib (n = 39) in terms of PFS (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.42–1.28; 7.8 months [95% CI 3.7–12.2] and 5.3 months [95% CI 3.7–9.3]; P = 0.32, respectively) (Shi et al., 2013). Here, EGFR is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.