Lung cancer : journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
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Although concurrent chemotherapy and radiation is the standard approach for good risk unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, there is no optimal concurrent chemotherapy regimen. Administration of chemotherapy at full dose with maximal activity against local and micrometastatic disease is highly desirable. This study tested the feasibility of 3 cycles of full dose cisplatin and pemetrexed concurrent with definitive thoracic radiotherapy followed by consolidation pemetrexed, without the dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) exceeding 33% of the patients. ⋯ Three systemic dose levels of pemetrexed and cisplatin could be administered concurrently with radiotherapy. The rate of survival at 24 months was encouraging.
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The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic factors and outcome of patients operated for adenosquamous (ADS) carcinoma of the lung, in comparison with adenocarcinoma (AD) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). ⋯ ADS are uncommon and extremely aggressive lung tumors. Adjuvant chemotherapy should be administered even in Stage I radically resected tumors. A whole brain postoperative prophylactic radiotherapy could be proposed to reduce risk of developing brain MTS.
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Recently, we have reported that EGFR mutation-specific antibodies performed well in immunohistochemical analysis, with good sensitivity. We investigated whether this method could detect non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) carrying EGFR mutations in malignant effusions and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), comparable to the peptide nucleic acid-locked nucleic acid (PNA-LNA) PCR clamp assay. Furthermore, we compared activating EGFR mutations between primary and recurrent NSCLC. ⋯ Identification of EGFR mutations is important for patients with primary and recurrent NSCLC. Rapid and sensitive immunocytochemistry using mutation-specific antibodies to detect EGFR mutations will be useful for diagnosing responsiveness to EGFR-targeted drugs.