Creeping phase II-ism and the medical pharmaceutical complex: weapons of mass distraction in the war against lung cancer. Clinical Oncology

摘要

This issue reports the long-awaited Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) phase II study1 that incorporated paclitaxel, the new drug of the 1990s, with standard twice-daily radiotherapy and cisplatin plus etoposide, which was presented initially at the 36th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in 2000.2 In that abstract, the authors addressed the following questions. Can the addition of paclitaxel to etoposide and cisplatin result in improved survival for patients with limited small-cell lung cancer (SCLQ? Can the addition of paclitaxetimprove on the results (1-year survival of 70% and median survival of 23 months) of the best arm of the Intergroup study?2'3 They reported that the 1-year survival rate on their study was 83%, inferring an advantage at this unorthodox benchmark, but the median survival had not yet been reached.