Outcome and prognostic factors of multimodal therapy for pulmonary large-cell neuroendocrine carcinomas

摘要

Background: There is controversy whether patients diagnosed with large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) should be treated according to protocols for non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) or small cell lung cancers (SCLC), especially with regard to the administration of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI). This study was set up to determine the incidence of brain metastases and to investigate the outcome following multimodal treatment in 70 patients with LCNEC.