Adjuvant therapy of non-small cell lung cancer

✍ Scribed by E. Carmack Holmes

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 251 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0278-0232
• DOI: 10.1002/hon.2900100105

✦ Synopsis

One hundred and forty thousand patients in the United States will develop lung cancer annually. About one half of these will have disease confined to the thorax with no clinical evidence of dissemination (Figure 1). A relatively high proportion of these patients will actually have disease that can be technically resected but the probability of cure for most of the patients remains low. Of the 70 000 patients who present annually with lung cancer confined to the thorax, 28 per cent will have TlNO disease, 27 per cent will have TlNl disease and T2NO disease, 10 per cent will hve T2N1 disease and 15 per cent will have resectable N2 disease and 20 per cent of these patients will be unresectable. Patients with TlNO disease have a very high survival rate and require no adjuvant therapy. Patients with T2NO disease also have survival rates in excess of 60 per cent and most of these patients generally are not considered to be candidates for postoperative adjuvant therapy. However, patients with stage I1 disease (TlNl and T2N1) have diminishing survival rates and these patients potentially can benefit from adjuvant therapy. Patients with squamous carcinoma