Abstract
In this study, small cell carcinoma of the lung was subclassified into 4 subtypes: oat cell carcinoma (OAT), intermediate cell type (INT), combined oat cell carcinoma and undifferentiated carcinoma, small cell type (UCS). The relationship between the effectiveness of chemotherapy and prognosis among these subtypes was examined in 66 cases. They consisted of 54 cases of OAT and INT and 12 cases of UCS. Patients received courses of therapy consisting of vincristine/nimustine or vincristine/adriamycin from January, 1977 to July, 1980 and vincristine/nimustine/ cyclophosphamide or vincristine/nimustine/adriamycin from August, 1980 to December, 1984.
The response rates to these combined chemotherapeutic regimens were 75.9% for OAT and INT, and 25.0% for UCS and this difference was statistically significant (p<0.005). On the other hand, median survival time and percent 2-year survival were almost the same in the two groups. From these findings, it was suggested that UCS might be a biologically different tumor from OAT and INT, and that different treatment approaches are required for the two types of tumor.
