Use of chemotherapy as an adjuvant to surgery for bronchogenic carcinoma

The use of cytotoxic drugs in combination with surgical resection for lung cancer has been disappointing, for the most part, despite the numerous animal studies demonstrating marked effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy and surgery. None of the large controlled cooperative studies has shown any improvement in long-term survival using Nitrogen Mustard or Cytoxan with standard surgical therapy. One exception to these generally negative findings has been a substantial increase in survival in patients with oat-cell carcinoma having surgical resection followed by the administration of Cytoxan. This paucity of positive results in the large controlled trials emphasizes that effective systemic therapy must be found if survival rates in patients with lung cancer are to be improved.