Lung cancer : journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Patterns, costs and cost-effectiveness of care in a trial of chemotherapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
In a recently published randomised trial of chemotherapy versus palliative care in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (the MIC2 trial), chemotherapy was shown to prolong survival without compromising quality of life. The study presented here examines patterns of care and their associated costs within a representative subgroup of patients from the MIC2 trial. The study consisted of 116 patients from the South Birmingham Health Authority area. ⋯ Non-parametric bootstrapping gave a difference between treatment arms in mean cost of 2924 pounds sterling(95% CI 1234 pounds sterling - 4323 pounds sterling). With a difference in mean survival of 2.4 months, this translates to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of 14,620 pounds sterling per life year gained. Chemotherapy was found to be more costly than standard palliative care, mainly due to the increased number of hospital in-patient days.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Distribution of talc suspension during treatment of malignant pleural effusion with talc pleurodesis.
Talc pleurodesis is an effective technique for the management of symptomatic malignant pleural effusions. It is assumed that a good dispersion of talc suspension contributes to the final success of this treatment. For this purpose, guidelines often advise to rotate the patient after intra-pleural instillation of the sclerosant. ⋯ Rotation of the patients did not influence the dispersion of sludge after 1 min or 1 h. Pleurodesis was successful in 85% of the patients after 1-month follow-up. Standard rotation protocols for patients with malignant pleural effusion do not affect the overall dispersion of talc suspension and should be abolished because of the discomfort caused to the patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Pre-treatment prognostic factors in patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer treated with hyperfractionated radiation therapy with or without concurrent chemotherapy.
We analyzed prognostic factors for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with hyperfractionated radiotherapy (HFX RT) with or without concurrent chemotherapy. One-hundred sixty-nine patients with histologically or cytologically proven, Stage III NSCLC, Karnofsky performance status (KPS) > or = 50, and no previous therapy were treated in a randomized trial as follows: Group 1--HFX RT to a total dose of 64.8 Gy (61 patients); Group 2--the same HFX RT with chemotherapy consisting of 100 mg of carboplatin on days 1 and 2 and 100 mg of etoposide on days 1-3 of each week during the RT course (52 patients); and Group 3--the same HFX RT with chemotherapy consisting of 200 mg of carboplatin on days 1 and 2 and 100 mg of etoposide on days 1-5 of the first, third, and fifth weeks of the RT course (56 patients). The median survival time for all 169 patients was 13 months and the 5-year survival rate was 13.4%. ⋯ Group 2 patients had a better prognosis than Group 1 patients (P = 0.0028) but there were no differences in prognosis between Groups 2 and 3 and between Groups 1 and 3. Of potential prognostic factors examined, female gender (P = 0.00012), age > or = 60 (P = 0.00000), KPS > or = 80 (P = 0.00000), Stage IIIA (P = 0.00000), and previous weight loss < or = 5% (P = 0.00000) were associated with better prognosis. These findings were confirmed by multivariate analysis.