Radiotherapy alone or with chemotherapy in the treatment of small-cell carcinoma of the lung: the results at 36 months. 2nd report to the Medical Research Council on the 2nd small-cell study.

This report compares the results at 36 months for 121 patients treated with radiotherapy alone (R) and 115 with radiotherapy followed by 3-drug chemotherapy (RC) for small-cell carcinoma of the lung of "limited" extent. The RC patients had an increased survival (P = 0.009 by log-rank test). The median survival was 25 weeks for the R patients and 43 weeks for the RC patients, but at 36 months, only 4 (3%) of the R patients and 5 (4%) of the RC patients were still alive. There was evidence of recurrence of the primary cancer in 41 (35%) of the 117 R and 35 (32%) of the 110 RC patients who died. Distant metastases were more frequent in the R series, being reported in 99 (82%) compared with 82 (71%) of the RC patients (P less than 0.05 by log-rank test). The numbers of R patients alive and considered free of metastases were 10 (8%) at 12 months, 3 (2%) at 24 months and 3 (2%) at 36 months; the corresponding figures for the RC patients being 30 (26%), 9 (8%), and 4 (3%).