Alternated approach with local irradiation and combination chemotherapy including cisplatin or carboplatin plus epirubicin and etoposide in intermediate stage non-small cell lung cancer

✍ Scribed by Pasquale Cornella; Gianfranco Scoppa; Antonio Daponte; Gennaro Musefta; Caterina Anania; Alfonso Maiorino; Carlo Curcio; Rossana Casaretti; Giuseppe Comella

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 752 KB
• Volume: 74
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(19941001)74:7<1874::aid-cncr2820740708>3.0.co;2-u

✦ Synopsis

Background. Prognosis of unresectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients is disappointing: their median survival time does not exceed 8-12 months. Recently, some authors reported an increased response rate and sometimes a prolonged survival for patients with intrathoracic disease treated with local irradiation combined with cytotoxic drugs.

Methods. Fifty-eight consecutive patients with Stage IIIA or IIIB NSCLC were enrolled in a randomized Phase I1 trial of alternated treatment composed of four courses of combination chemotherapy and three cycles of local irradiation. Chemotherapy consisted of a randomly selected platinum compound (cisplatin [60 mg/m2] or carboplatin [300 mg/m2]) intravenously (i.v.) on Day 1, epirubicin (50 mg/m") i.v. on Day 1, and etoposide (100 mg/ mZ) i.v. on Days 1-3. A course of radiotherapy consisted of 5 consecutive fractions (3 Gy per fraction, 1 fraction per day) for a total dosage of 15 Gy per course. Each course of chemotherapy was alternated every 2 weeks From the Departments of *Medical Oncology and tRadiotherapy, National Tumor Institute; the