Dose Modification of Etoposide plus Platinum in Elderly Patients with Extensive-Disease Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Elderly patients with extensive-disease small-cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC) have a high risk of chemotherapy toxicity due to multiple comorbidities and poor performance status. Although dose modification is often used to avoid toxicity in elderly patients with ED-SCLC, there is little data on the effect of initial dose-reduced chemotherapy on survival outcomes.

We retrospectively reviewed 100 elderly patients (≥70 years) with ED-SCLC who received first-line etoposide plus platinum chemotherapy between January 2006 and December 2020.

The median age was 74 years. Eighty-nine patients (89%) had a history of smoking, and 38 (38%) had chronic lung disease. Thirty-four patients (34%) received dose-reduced etoposide plus platinum in the first cycle. The dose-reduced group had significantly higher age, lower body mass index, and poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Score. There were no significant differences in survival outcomes between the dose-reduced and full-dose chemotherapy (median overall survival [OS], 4.9 vs. 6.5 months, p = 0.440; median progression-free survival [PFS], 3.7 vs. 4.6 months, p = 0.272). In multivariate analyses, DR in the first cycle (hazard ratio 0.519, 95% CI: 0.269-1.000, p = 0.050) was significantly associated with OS. Following a subgroup analysis of 59 patients who received minimum four cycles, no significant differences in survival outcomes between the two groups (median OS, 10.9 vs. 9.4 months, p = 0.817; median PFS, 6.3 vs. 6.5 months, p = 0.902) were noted.

The dose-reduced chemotherapy with first-line etoposide plus platinum had non-inferior survival outcomes compared to the full-dose chemotherapy in elderly patients with ED-SCLC.