Efficacy and Toxicity of Pemetrexed or Gemcitabine Combined with Cisplatin in the Treatment of Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

    October 2012 in “ DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) ”
    Xingsheng Hu, Shunchang Jiao, Shucai Zhang, Zhehai Wang, Mengzhao Wang, Cheng Huang, Zheng Ruan, Kai Li, Jie Wang, Yajie Wang, Xin Ouyang, Wenguang Lv, Gang Cheng, Chunhong Hu, Rong Luo, Yan Sun
    TLDR Pemetrexed with cisplatin is safer and more effective than gemcitabine with cisplatin for advanced lung cancer.
    The study compared the efficacy and toxicity of pemetrexed (PP group) and gemcitabine (GP group) combined with cisplatin in 251 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The PP group had a higher clinical effective rate (25.20% vs. 17.74%) and a significantly higher efficacy in non-squamous cell carcinoma (27.62% vs. 16.00%) compared to the GP group. Both groups had similar median survival times (16.9 vs. 17.0 months) and 1- and 2-year survival rates. However, the PP group experienced significantly fewer adverse reactions, including lower rates of white blood cell reduction, lower platelet count, lower hemoglobin, and hair loss. The study concluded that pemetrexed combined with cisplatin is a safe and effective first-line treatment for previously untreated advanced NSCLC, with fewer adverse reactions compared to gemcitabine combined with cisplatin.
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