Suggestions of a dose-response effect for cisplatin in non-small-cell lung cancer have contributed to the development of very high-dose cisplatin regimens (200 mg/m2 per cycle). We treated 53 eligible patients with metastatic or recurrent non-small-cell lung cancer with a combination of 100 mg/m2 cisplatin and 4 mg/m2 vinblastine, each given on days 1 and 8 of a 28-day cycle. We observed no complete response and 4 partial responses (8%). Median survival was 6 months. Toxicities of grade III or greater included leukopenia (11 cases), nausea/vomiting (6 cases), thrombocytopenia (2 cases), anemia (2 cases), and elevation of transaminase (1 case). Neurotoxicity has been reported to be a major problem in several other very high-dose cisplatin regimens. The low level of neurotoxicity observed in this study may be attributable to the median cumulative cisplatin dose of less than 600 mg/m2. This vinblastine/very high-dose cisplatin regimen showed minor activity against non-small-cell lung cancer. The level of activity did not surpass that of standard-dose (100 mg/m2 per cycle) cisplatin-containing regimens.