Abstract
Aims and background. Small cell lung cancer is an aggressive histologic subtype of lung cancer in which the role of chemotherapy and radiotherapy has been well established in limited-stage disease. We retrospectively reviewed a series of limitedstage small cell lung cancers treated with chemotherapy and thoracic and brain radiotherapy. Methods and study design. A total of 124 patients affected by limited-stage small cell lung cancer has been treated over 10 years in our Institute. Fifty-three patients (42.8%) had concomitant radio-chemotherapy treatment and 71 patients (57.2%) a sequential treatment. Eighty-eight patients (70.9%) underwent an association of a platinum-derived drug (cisplatinum or carboplatinum) and etoposide. Prophylactic cranial irradiation was planned in all patients with histologically proven complete response to primary radio-chemotherapy. Results. With a mean follow-up of 2.2 years, complete response was obtained in 50.8% of cases. We found a significant difference between different radio-chemotherapy association approaches (P = 0.007): percentages of overall survival were respectively 10.0%, 12.9% and 5.6% in early, late concomitant and sequential radiochemotherapy timing. Cranial prophylaxis did not seem to influence overall survival (P = 0.21) or disease-free survival for local relapse (P = 0.34). Conclusions. Concomitant radio-chemotherapy is the best approach according to our experience. Our results show a benefit of prophylactic cranial irradiation in distant metastasis-free survival. Copyright - Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 289-295 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Tumori |
Volume | 100 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Keywords
- Chemotherapy
- Limited stage
- Prophylactic cranial irradiation
- Radiotherapy
- Small cell lung cancer
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cancer Research
- Oncology
- Medicine(all)