[Dose intensity chemotherapy in lung cancer]

Abstract

Dose intensity (DI) is defined as the amount of drugs administered per unit time (mg/m2/wk). Recently this concept is thought to be one of the most important tactics to improve the chemotherapeutic results. In this article, we summarized the reports about the impact of dose intensity chemotherapy on various malignancies and the experimental results in animal models. As the application of this concept for the treatment of lung cancer, we conducted the following trials. For the patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), weekly intensive chemotherapy employing cisplatin, oncovin, doxorubicin, and etoposide (CODE regimen) was performed. Fifteen (88%) of 17 patients responded to this regimen, including 5 (29%) complete responders. The median survival time for all patients was 45 weeks. For the patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), short interval (3 weeks) MVP (mitomycin, vindesine, and cisplatin) therapy using with recombinant human granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (rhG-CSF) was performed. This study was aimed at improving the therapeutic result by reducing the cycle length of MVP regimen through the use of rG-CSF. Thirty-two out of 40 patients could receive two or more cycles of MVP regimen on schedule. These results in SCLC and NSCLC suggest that does intensity chemotherapy can improve the outcome for patients with these disease.