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
    Studysummary In this study, pemetrexed combined with cisplatin for advanced NSCLC treatment had similar efficacy to gemcitabine but resulted in significantly fewer adverse reactions. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
    The study compared 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 total effective rate (25.20% vs. 17.74%) and significantly fewer adverse reactions, including reduced white blood cells, platelets, hemoglobin, and hair loss, 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. The study concluded that pemetrexed combined with cisplatin was as effective as gemcitabine combined with cisplatin but had fewer side effects, making it a safer first-line treatment option for NSCLC.
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