Greater numbers of people with lung cancer should be encouraged to consider chemotherapy as a treatment option, according to research published today.
International researchers, including Prof Luke Clancy, of St James's Hospital, Dublin, looked at both the outcome and quality of life of 1,200 patients with lung cancer treated with a new combination of chemotherapy. They found that patients with the commonest form of lung cancer - non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) - had a 7 per cent better survival rate when the new treatment regime was used.
Significantly for a disease with a high death rate, the research showed a consistently better quality of life for those undergoing the new treatment option.
"This study shows you actually make people with NSCLC better - you make them live a bit longer - but you also make then generally better while they are having treatment and that's very important," Prof Clancy said yesterday.
The treatment regime uses a new agent called docetaxel in combination with an older drug, carboplatin.
It is administered intravenously at three-week intervals. Patients in the new study who received the new combined treatment reported significantly less nausea and vomiting than those taking a standard regime.
In the Republic, lung cancer accounts for 20 per cent of all cancer deaths.
Only one in 10 patients with lung cancer is alive five years after diagnosis.
Latest figures suggest that as few as 9 per cent of lung cancer patients receive chemotherapy.
According to a National Cancer Registry report, due to be published in September, the incidence of lung cancer is increasing as the number of women in the State who smoke continues to rise.