[Medical treatment of primary pulmonary neoplasms]

Primary cancer of the lung is the most frequent malignant tumor in Switzerland among males and its frequency is rapidly increasing among females. The rate of failure after curative treatment including surgery and/or radiotherapy is about 80%. A large proportion of lung tumors are already inoperable at the time of diagnosis, a fact which accounts for the importance of chemotherapy as a palliative treatment for lung cancer. Single drug chemotherapies are relatively ineffective, with an overall response rate of 20% and a response rate of up to 50% for small cell tumors. Combination chemotherapies attain a 50 to 90% response rate in small cell tumors while the rate of failure is 50% or more in other cell types. Published results of post-surgical adjuvant chemotherapy of lung cancer are equivocal, possibly due to unwanted differences in the selection of patients and in therapeutic schedule. It is still not demonstrated that adjuvant chemotherapy improves lung cancer treatment.