Journal of Cancer Therapy, 2014, 5, 281-296 Published Online March 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jct http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jct.2014.53035
Chemotherapy (Gemcitabine plus Carboplatin versus Paclitaxel plus Carboplatin) in Elderly Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Takanori Ayabe*, Masaki Tomita, Eiichi Chosa, Makoto Ikenoue, Yukie Shirasaki, Kunihide Nakamura Department of Surgery II, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan Email: *
[email protected] Received 11 February 2014; revised 6 March 2014; accepted 13 March 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract Background: This retrospective study was to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of gemcitabine plus carboplatin (GC regimen) and paclitaxel plus carboplatin (PC regimen) combination chemotherapy in elderly patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Methods: Seventy-four patients (GC regimen, n = 44; PC regimen, n = 30) received gemcitabine at a dose of 1000 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8, and carboplatin with the target dose of area under the curve (AUC) of 4 on day 8 every 28 days and paclitaxel at a dose of 70 mg/m2 on days 1, 8 and 15, and carboplatin with the target dose of AUC of 5 on day 1 every 28 days. Patients were divided in two groups (younger one: n = 42,
