The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: June, 1996
Lung Cancer

• A more sensitive tumor marker for small-cell lung cancer? - Japanese researchers in Osaka found that the serum level of a peptide, ProGRP(31-98), is a sensitive marker for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Comparing 101 newly diagnosed untreated patients with SCLC, with 111 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and 114 non-malignant lung disease patients, they showed that levels of this marker were significantly higher for SCLC (median 234.4 pg/mL) than for NSCLC (22.6 pg/mL) or benign disease (12.4 pg/mL). Sensitivity for diagnosis of SCLC was 72.3% compared with 62.4% for the currently-used neuron-specific enolase indicator. The marker was expressed at higher levels with more advanced disease, and there was a strong correlation between its decline and the clinical response two weeks after treatment. (Takada, Br J Cancer 73:1227, 1996)

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• A report of high response rates in non-small-cell disease - An article in the June, 1996 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology described a high response rate in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. The authors at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and the Rex Cancer Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, described an objective response in 16 (64%) of 25 patients with disease measured by CT scans. Estimated median survival time is 17 months, and one-year survival 64% in these patients treated with amifostine before cisplatin on day one, followed by weekly vinblastine. Toxic effects on the kidney, hearing and peripheral nerves, expected from the drugs that were used, were acute but generally reversible after treatment had stopped. The study was only on a small scale, but the results justify a larger trial. (Schiller, J Clin Oncol 14:1913)