Comparison of the efficacy of cisplatin and carboplatin in combination with etoposide in firstline treatment of extensive-stage small cell lung cancer in real-world practice in the Czech Republic - a retrospective analysis of patients from the LUCAS project.

BACKGROUND: Patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) have a poor prognosis. The standard palliative treatment for four decades has been chemotherapy as a combination of etoposide with carboplatin or cisplatin, and in recent years, immunotherapy in addition. AIMS: To determine whether there is a difference in the efficacy of palliative chemotherapy as cisplatin or carboplatin in combination with etoposide in patients with ES-SCLC in real-world practice in the Czech Republic. METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of a cohort of 348 patients from the LUCAS project with ES-SCLC. 79 were treated with etoposide plus cisplatin and 265 were treated with etoposide plus carboplatin. Kaplan-Meier curves and the Cox regression model were used for analysis. RESULTS: No statistically significant difference in median overall survival (mOS) or median progression free survival (mPFS) was found between groups or between patients grouped according to age and performance status (PS) in mOS. The Cox regression result was similar. CONCLUSION: This study shows that cisplatin and carboplatin do not differ in efficacy in a given indication, thus when choosing a treatment, the physician should consider the expected toxicity in a particular patient, assessing the patient's general condition and comorbidities.

Worse Prognosis in the Symptomatic Patients With Lung Cancer - Czech Multicentric Study.

Background/Aim: This study aimed at contributing to a better diagnosis of lung cancer by analyzing the patient's symptoms and their linkage to other characteristics. Patients and Methods: We analyzed the data of 3,322 patients from LUCAS (LUngCAncerfocuS) National Registry of the Czech Republic. Overall survival was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: The most common symptoms were cough (47.5%), dyspnea (45.6%), pain (27.3%), and weight loss (25.7%). Among all patients, 16% were asymptomatic. We demonstrated the negative prognostic significance of increasing number of lung cancer symptoms, that was significant after adjustment for age, TNM stages, and performance status, and morphological types of the cancer. Conclusion: Monitoring the severity and type of symptoms in patients with lung cancer can help in the diagnostics of the disease and the estimation of prognosis.