VINORELBINE AND CISPLATIN IN THE TREATMENT OF ADVANCED NON-SMALL-CELLLUNG-CANCER - RESULTS OF A MULTICENTER CZECH STUDY

There is continuous discussion about the optimal treatment for patient s with inoperable non small cell lung cancer. This is because chemothe rapy can only improve the quality of life in a fraction of treated pat ients while prolonging survival by a couple of weeks at best. The new cytostatic drug ''vinorelbine'' has been tested in this indication dur ing the last years. The drug has reached the response rate of 16 to 30 % when used as monotherapy. The phase II studies proved the combinatio n of vinorelbine with cisplatin to be the most efficient one and this combination was picked up for phase III clinical trials. The clinical trial with the aims to verify published data on treatment efficacy, to assess adverse effects of treatment and to evaluate appropriateness f or routine application has been made in the Czech Republic. The treatm ent schedule was as follows: cisplatin (Platidiam Lachema) in a dose o f 80 mg/m(2) on day l,vinorelbine (Navelbine Pierre Fabre) in a dose o f 30 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 8. The whole cycle was repeated on day 22. The treatment was applied for 12 weeks. After that the efficacy of tre atment was evaluated and only the patients with regression or stabiliz ation of the disease continued the treatment. 44 (35%) partial remissi ons and 3 (2.3%) complete remissions were achieved in a group of 126 e valuable patients. The effect of treatment was evaluated as stable dis ease in 35 (27%) patients while the progression of disease occurred in 38 (30%) patients. The tolerance of treatment using effective antieme tic support (ondansetron or granisetron) was fairly good.