The type of chemotherapy regimen used within a chemoradiation regimen for the treatment of patients with stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) does not influence who will develop brain metastases within the first year after diagnosis, a study presented at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2016 has shown.1
Although brain metastases frequently occur within 1 year after chemoradiotherapy for stage 3 NSCLC, it is unclear whether the specific chemotherapy regimen impacts subsequent brain metastases development.
For the multicenter, retrospective study, researchers analyzed data from 838 patients with stage 3 NSCLC who completed chemoradiotherapy. Of those, 737 received concurrent chemoradiation and 101 received sequential therapy.
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Results showed that 11% of patients developed brain metastases within 1 year, with 5% having brain metastases as their only site of first relapse. Researchers found that patients with brain metastases were more likely to be younger (P < .001), female (P = .009), and have adenocarcinoma histology (P < .001).
The study demonstrated no association between the type of chemotherapy used, and brain metastases development within 1 year of treatment (OR, 0.87; P = .695) nor as the only site of first relapse (OR, 0.89; P = .838). Comparable results were observed for low dose cisplatin monotherapy vs high dose non-taxane and high-dose taxane regimens, cisplatin/etoposide, cisplatin/vinorelbine, and weekly cisplatin/docetaxel.
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Further, whether chemotherapy was administered concurrently or sequentially to radiation had no impact on brain metastases development.
Reference
- Hendriks L, Brouns A, Amini M, et al. Brain metastases (BM) development after chemoradiation (CRT) for stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): does the type of chemotherapy matter? Poster presentation at: European Lung Cancer Conference 2016; April 13-16, 2016; Geneva, Switzerland.