Lung cancer

In small cell lung cancer, combination chemotherapy including agents such etoposide, teniposide, cisplatin, doxorubicin, ifosfamide, vincristine and cyclophosphamide continues to be the cornerstone of therapy. The importance of dose scheduling of etoposide with continuous treatment of 5 days' duration or more is becoming more and more clear. Complete or partial responses secondary to combination chemotherapy occur in 80-90% of all patients with median durations of 9 to 11 months. Median survival in these studies is unchanged, at present 11-16 months depending on the initial tumour stage. The optimum duration of treatment is still uncertain, but generally a period of 6 to 9 months is used. The use of G-CSF with combination chemotherapy leads to reductions in the incidence of fever, duration and severity of grade 4 neutropenia, and in the total number of days of treatment with i.v. antibiotics and days of hospitalization. No differences have been observed in response rates, duration of response or survival. Therapeutic results for epidermoid, cancer, adeno carcinoma, large cell carcinoma and mesothelioma are essentially unchanged. The treatment of patients with these tumours should continue to be considered experimental since no standard chemotherapy has as yet been developed, neither when given as single modality nor in combination with surgery or radiotherapy. Two studies published in 1991 comparing induction chemotherapy before irradiation versus irradiation alone have resulted in improvement of median and 2-year survival, while a third study did not show such an improvement. The fact remains that three-fourths of patients with local disease die within 3 years, and further improvements in both systemic and local treatment are needed.