Oat cell carcinomas of the lung yield to combination therapy
Radiation oncologists and other physicians are inching along in their attempts at better control or even cure of lung cancer.
Possibly the most dramatic new treatment is that developed for oat cell carcinoma by the Radiation Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Md. In this treatment program, radiotherapy to the primary tumor site, prophylactic whole brain irradiation (50% of patients develop brain metastases), and intensive systemic chemotherapy are all administered to the patient at once. After three months, all treatment is stopped, and there is no maintenance therapy.
The toxicity and side effects are, predictably, considerable, and there were six deaths, in the group of 31 patients, that were associated with complications of treatment. Four of these six patients had no residual tumor at autopsy.
But, according to C. Harry Kent, MD, senior investigator in
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