At present, concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is considered the standard treatment of limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC). However, LS-SCLC is highly heterogeneous in the T stage, N stage, and prognosis. Increasing evidence has shown that individual treatment should be considered when treating LS-SCLC patients. The aim of the present study was to explore the optimal combination model of thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) and chemotherapy in N3 LS-SCLC. We retrospectively analyzed 93 N3 LS-SCLC patients treated in the Department of Oncology of Binzhou Medical University Hospital (Shandong, China) between March 2010 and October 2015. A total of 52 (52/93; 55.9%) patients received sequential CRT, and 41 (41/93; 44.1%) patients received concurrent CRT. All patients received 4-6 cycles of chemotherapy and TRT (50-60 Gy). The median follow-up time was 25.4 months (range was 6-65 months).The overall response rate was 88.5% in the sequential CRT group (9.6% complete response rate and 78.8% partial response rate) and 90.2% in the concurrent CRT group (14.6% complete response rate and 75.6% partial response rate). The PFS and OS were 15.4 months and 19.1 months in sequential CRT group, and 16.9 months and 20.5 months in concurrent CRT group. There was no significant difference in treatment response rate, PFS, and OS between sequential and concurrent CRT patients. The most common treatment-related toxicities were nausea/vomiting, neutropenia, and esophagitis. In conclusion, when concurrent CRT is performed in N3 LS-SCLC patients, tolerance to treatment should be fully considered. In our study, sequential CRT and concurrent CRT showed the same efficacy, and sequential CRT demonstrated better tolerance. However, these results require confirmation in future follow-up studies.
Keywords: chemoradiotherapy sequence; chemotherapy; prognosis; radiotherapy; small cell lung cancer.