Abstract
Of the approximately 170,000 cases of lung cancer diagnosed each year in the United States, 20 percent are small-cell cancers.
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Staging systems divide small-cell lung cancer into two categories: limited and extensive. The former is clinically confined to one side of the chest and is treatable by radiotherapy field sizes (portals) tolerated by normal tissues.
The main treatment for limited small-cell lung cancer is radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Cisplatin plus etoposide has largely supplanted the older regimens of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and vincristine. Advantages of the cisplatin–etoposide regimen over the older regimen include the absence of toxic effects on intrathoracic organs and . . .