ABSTRACT

We evaluated different treatment results reported and showed the effect of treatment at single and multiple clinics for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). We attempted to show a decreasing impact of chemotherapy (CT) and thoracic radiotherapy (RT) treatment results when implemented at different clinics for SCLC compared to the treatment results at a clinic.

We conducted a retrospective study on 54 non-metastatic SCLC patients who underwent treatments at various clinics. Patients underwent 1–12 courses of CT before they came to the clinic for thoracic RT. RT was performed at 180–400 cGy dose per fraction for a total of 30–52 Gy doses, and patients were followed for 12–60 months.

When the study was reviewed, the results showed that the median disease-free survival and survival rates were 8 and 9 months and that the 2-, 5-, and 5-year survival rates were 8%, 6.3%, and 1.8%, respectively. The median progression-free survival rates for 2 and 3 years were 4%, and for 5 years, it was 1.8%. Weight loss for disease-free survival (p=0.01) and superior vena cava syndrome for overall survival (p=0.02) were considered as bad prognostic factors. In this study, acceptable toxicity values were found when the results were compared with those from other studies.

We obtained worse results than those from literature data on our SCLC patients who came to our clinic after the progression of their disease. The main causes were identified as insufficient staging and different treatment protocols applied at different clinics. Therefore, we argue that CT and thoracic RT for SCLC must be performed at the same clinic and that the same protocols and staging methods must be used.

Keywords: Small cell lung cancer, chemoradiotherapy, vena cava syndrome