[Prolonged oral etoposide therapy in advanced stage lung cancer]

Authors discuss results of the prolonged oral etoposide treatment of 79 patients with advanced stage lung cancer. Thirty patients with small-cell lung cancer were treated with Cisplatin in combination with prolonged oral etoposide. Response rate was nearly 100%. Most of the patients (24) were in partial remission, and the mean survival time was 15 months. Forty-nine patients with non-small cell lung cancer were divided at random into two groups: patients in the first group (n = 25) were treated with Cisplatin in combination with prolonged oral etoposide. In the second group (n = 24) was used only prolonged oral etoposide therapy for 14-, or 21 days. Encouraging response rate have been observed with long-term daily administration of oral etoposide to treat non-small cell lung cancer. In both groups there was a response rate nearly 80%. Most of the patients in these two subgroups got into partial remission, and a rest were in stable clinical stage (median duration was 5 months). Besides alopecia, which occurred in all patients, myelosuppression (agranulocytosis) was the predominate toxicity (agranulocytosis in 5 cases), which was affectively treated with combined supportive care. Etoposide given by this dose and schedule (100 mg/d for 14 days) has activity as first-line systemic therapy in combination with Cisplatin for advanced small-cell lung cancer and, has a moderate activity for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.