MICE - A NEW ACTIVE COMBINATION FOR NONSMALL CELL LUNG-CANCER

We have treated 38 patients with stage III/IV non-small cell lung canc er with the following regimen: mitomycin-C = 6 mg/m2, ifosfamide = 3 m g/m2, cisplatin = 75 mg/m2, vindesine = 3 mg/m2 (MICE), intravenously (i.v.) on day 1, every 3 weeks. Among 26 patients with stage IV diseas e, 15 obtained a partial remission (PR) (response rate = 57%, 95% conf idence interval = 38-76), with a median time to disease progression an d a median survival of 4.9 and 7.1 months, respectively. 6 out 7 patie nts with stage IIIA disease were documented as PR and 5 of them underw ent radical surgery with two pathologically confirmed complete remissi ons. Overall toxicity was substantial but manageable: 3 patients had g rade III/IV leucopenia (although 5 patients had neutropenic fever) whe reas 13 patients experienced grade II/III anaemia. In conclusion we be lieve that MICE regimen is an interesting combination and warrants fur ther evaluations both for palliation and in a neoadjuvant setting.