Japanese Investigators Propose Alternative Treatment for Advanced Lung Cancer

Cancer researchers have found that administering a pair of cancer drugs, S-1 and irinotecan, gave similar or better results for patients with advanced lung cancer than did the standard platinum-based treatment regimen but with less severe toxic side effects.

Investigators at the Kinki University School of Medicine (Osaka, Japan) treated a group of 56 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with i.v. irinotecan on day one and with oral S-1 on days one to 14 every three weeks. The patients were monitored for endpoints including response rate, progression-free survival, and overall survival. As there were no placebo controls in the study, results were compared to those from similar patients receiving classical chemotherapy.

Results published in the August 15, 2008, issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research revealed that the response of patients to the irinotecan - S-1 combination of drugs was somewhat better with less severe side effects than was the response of other patients to the standard platinum-based treatment.

First author Dr. Isamu Okamoto, associate professor of medical oncology at Kinki University Medical School, said, "There continues to be reluctance on the part of both patients and treating physicians to accept the toxicity of platinum-based therapy, given the associated small gain in survival, so active therapies with improved toxicity profiles are clearly needed. This is a promising alternative, but needs further testing in randomized trials.”

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Kinki University School of Medicine