Combination chemotherapy for small cell carcinoma of the lung

Sixty-one patients with proven small cell carcinoma of the bronchus were treated by a five-drug pulsed chemotherapy schedule involving cyclophosphamide, vincristine, Adriamycin, methotrexate and prednisolone, given at four-week intervals. The response rate was 60%. All patients also received radiotherapy (4000-5000 rad) to the primary lesion. Survival was identical whether radiotherapy was given first or between the second and third courses of chemotherapy. The survival of responding patients was significantly prolonged as compared both with the non-responders in this series and with a similar group of patients treated only by radiotherapy in this hospital in 1970. The poor results in patients resistant to chemotherapy reflect the fact that 88% of the patients had disseminated disease at the time of diagnosis. The survival of responding patients was not improved over that reported by others as a result of incorporating Adriamycin and prednisolone into the schedule, so there seems no justification for using them in future treatments based on this pattern of chemotherapy. It was possible to identify all responding patients within six weeks of initiating chemotherapy, and a delay of this duration did not affect the efficacy of radiotherapy. Radiotherapy, however, frequently interfered with the subsequent assessment of response to chemotherapy. It therefore seems obligatory to give chemotherapy before radiotherapy in order to determine which patients will benefit from subsequent drug treatment.