Therapy of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer with irinotecan and gemcitabine in combination.
Non-small-cell lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Chemotherapy has been shown to improve survival and quality of life in patients with advanced disease when compared to best supportive care. Of the commonly used therapies, platinum in combination with gemcitabine, taxanes, and vinorelbine offers superior activity to single-agent platinum or older platinum combinations. In addition, single-agent gemcitabine or single-agent paclitaxel has resulted in lower survival compared to each in combination with carboplatin in 2 recently reported phase III trials. However, among themselves new doublets have shown no improvement in survival, and treatment has traditionally been chosen based on convenience and toxicity rather than efficacy. The combination of gemcitabine and irinotecan has demonstrated promising results in preclinical studies. In this review, the data available on the combination of gemcitabine and irinotecan in phase I and phase II trials are discussed.
Freitas
Juliana Ribeiro de
JR
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
Rocha-Lima
Caio M
CM