Efficacy Comparison Between Weekly and Triweekly Regimens of Carboplatin-paclitaxel in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Aim:Around 40% of non-small cell lung cancers have stage 3b or 4 disease at the time of diagnosis. In the treatment, platinum-based therapy can still be used in patients who do not carry a driver mutation or who are not suitable for immunotherapy with advanced non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). The objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of weekly carboplatin-paclitaxel regimen with triweekly carboplatin-paclitaxel regimen.Materials and Methods:This is a retrospectively structured study. Patients who were followed-up and treated for lung cancer in Adana City Training and Research Hospital’s Oncology Department between January 1, 2017 and July 1, 2021 were included.Results:Out of the 104 patients, 52 (50%) patients received weekly carboplatin-paclitaxel (C-P), and 52 (50%) received C-P every 3 weeks. The mean overall survival was 19.64±2.53 months in the weekly C-P group and 17.47±1.64 months in the triweekly C-P group (p=0.675). The mean progression-free survival (PFS) was 8.5±1.01 months in the weekly C-P group and 5.76±0.61 months in the triweekly C-P group (p=0.017).Conclusion:We demonstrated that weekly C-P treatment, which is known to have fewer toxicity in NSCLC, provided better PFS compared to triweekly treatment.

Keywords

• non-small cell lung cancer
• carboplatin-paclitaxel
• triweekly
• progression free survival
• overall survival