Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) targeted therapies, including the monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) cetuximab and panitumumab, and the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) erlotinib, gefitinib and lapatinib have been proved to be effective in a range of tumors, such as colorectal cancer (CRC), non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and breast cancer (Xu et al., 2017). The gene discussed is EGFR; the disease is non-small cell lung carcinoma.