Efficacy of Low-dose Paclitaxel and Cisplatin in Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Purpos e: To evaluate the efficacy and tox ic ity of co mbinatio n c he mothe rapy w ith low-dose pac litaxe l and cis platin in patie nts w ith advanced no n-s mall cell lung cance r. Materials and Methods : Che mothe rapy-naive patie nts with unres ectable, patho log ically prove n no n-s mall ce ll lung cance r we re e lig ible fo r inc lus io n in the s tudy. Patients rece ived pac litaxe l (145 mg/m 2 iv 3 ho ur D1) and cis platin (60 mg/m 2 iv D1) eve ry 3 wee ks . Res ults : Fo rty-two patie nts we re e nro lled betwee n Fe bruary 2000 and Fe bruary 2001. The median age was 53.5 years . Patie nts w ith ade nocarc ino ma numbered 29, squamo us ce ll carc ino ma 7, large ce ll carc ino ma 3, and undiffe re ntiated carc ino ma 3. Seve ntee n patie nts had stage IIIB, 19 had stage IV dis ease and the re maining 6 dis played rec urred dis eas e afte r prev io us s urg ical resectio n. Fo ur patie nts te rminated treatme nt early beca us e of hype rs e ns itiv ity (1) and s eve re e mes is (3). Of the 38 evaluable patients , 14 had PR and the res po ns e rate was 36.8%. Amo ng partial res po nde rs , 6 patie nts rece ived additio nal c hes t radiatio n. The median duratio n of res po ns e was 47.9 wee ks and the median overall s urv ival was 54.0 weeks . Of the total 176 co urs es , 14 we re de layed, 22 required dose reductio n, and g rade 3∼4 neutro pe nia occ urred in 5.6% of co urs es . Only o ne e pisode of ne utro pe nic feve r deve lo ped and the re we re no treatme ntre lated mo rtalities . Other tox ic ities we re ge ne rally mild.