INFLUENCE OF ETOPOSIDE ON THE LOCAL EFFECT TO RADIATION IN NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER ―A RANDOMIZED PROSPECTIVE STUDY

We conducted a prospective randomized study to determine whether or not Etoposide (Et), applied concomitantly with radiation, would be more effective in reducing the tumor sizes of non-small cell lung cancer than radiation alone. Radiation was administered in doses of 1.5-2.0 Gy/day, 5 times a week with targets of a total of 40 Gy or more. Et was administered daily in oral doses of 25 mg/day every day, but 1 hour before radiation on the relevant designated days. The effectiveness of radiation alone was similar in both adenocarcinoma and epidermoid carcinoma. Combined with Et, there was no difference from radiation alone in adenocarcinoma, but a significant difference was evident in epidermoid carcinoma. The number of patients in whom tumors were decreased to less than 50% of the initial sizes by 60 Gy was 16/23 (69.6%) in the concomitant therapy group. In the radiation alone group this rate was 11/29 (37.9%). This difference is statistically significant (0.02 < P < 0.03). In terms of tumor size, effects were seen only is the sub-group with tumor sizes of 3.1-5 cm.