1993 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 43-49
Some lung cancer patients evaluated as complete response (CR) after radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy may suffer from local recurrence during follow-up, with poor prognosis. This might be caused by the inaccurate evaluation of the therapeutic effect and the estimation of local recurrence. 246 patients who received radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy for primary lung cancer at our department from 1983 to 1987 included 15 CR patients, composed of 5 patients treated for small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and 10 patients treated for non-SCLC. The therapeutic effects were re-evaluated by CT, provided that the 3 cases on whom CT was not performed on the day of reevaluation were excluded from the study. This re-evaluation revealed that 4 cases of SCLC should have been classified as partial response (PR) cases. Tumor regrowth was observed in the irradiated field in all these cases. In conclusion, strict evaluation of the therapeutic effect on lung cancer is extremely important for determining response rate and prognosis.
