Comparison between Prolonged Administration of Oral Etoposide and UFT Combined with Intravenous Cisplatin-based Chemotherapy in Postoperative Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: a Randomized Trial

Oral administration of etoposide or UFT is generally used in outpatient treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after surgery in Japan. We examined the effectiveness of etoposide and UFT with relation to disease-free survival, overall survival and toxicity in postoperative NSCLC patients. In this study, a total of 50 patients were randomized to receive either, 25mg/day of etoposide, on a 2 week cycle (Group I- 25 cases) or 300mg/day of UFT, continuous administration (Group II-25 cases), after a Mitomycin C, Cisplatin and Vindesine, intravenous (i.v.). Disease-free and overall survival were better in Group II with 20 complete cases than in Group I with 15 complete cases. Furthermore, Group II achieved better disease-free and overall survival rates than Group I with reference to stage IIIA and lymph node metastasis groups. There were no instances of severe toxicity in either group. Results of this study showed that prolonged oral administration of 25mg/day of etoposide is ineffective compared with oral UFT in NSCLC patients after surgical treatment. New randomized clinical trials of 50mg/day of etoposide will be necessary to determine usefulness and toxicity