Adriamycin and chlorambucil versus adriamycin and thiabendazole in the treatment of extensive, non-small cell carcinoma of the lung: a Southwest Oncology Group pilot study

The results of this study show no advantage for either of the two simple, adriamycin-based combination chemotherapy programs compared to each other or to historical control results for supportive care or adriamycin alone. They were associated with only slightly less life-threatening toxicity than previous BACON or NAC regimens (9% versus 13%), and the frequency of drug-related deaths was the same (4%). It is of interest that AC produced only slightly more leukopenia than AT, and it is possible that the dose of chlorambucil which we selected was suboptimal. At least one other combination of adriamycin and an alkylating agent (cyclophosphamide) has been reported to show significant survival benefit among extensive-disease patients with squamous cell histology. We do not recommend further exploration in patients with extensive disease with either regimen used in this study.