Lung cancer : journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
A retrospective analysis of outcomes across histological subgroups in a three-arm phase III trial of gemcitabine in combination with carboplatin or paclitaxel versus paclitaxel plus carboplatin for advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
Three phase III trials have shown pemetrexed to be associated with improved clinical outcomes among patients with adenocarcinoma and large cell histology compared with patients with squamous histology in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The current retrospective analysis examined whether differences were present by histology in a three-arm trial of gemcitabine-carboplatin (GCb) or gemcitabine-paclitaxel (GP) versus a standard regimen of paclitaxel-carboplatin (PCb). ⋯ In this trial of commonly used agents for advanced NSCLC, overall survival and time to progression were similar when comparing patients across histologies. The effect of treatment, however, varied across histologies.