Treatment Outcomes of Different Prognostic Groups of Patients on Cancer and Leukemia Group B Trial 39801: Induction Chemotherapy Followed by Chemoradiotherapy Compared with Chemoradiotherapy Alone for Unresectable Stage III Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

BackgroundIn Cancer and Leukemia Group B 39801, we evaluated whether induction chemotherapy before concurrent chemoradiotherapy would result in improved survival and demonstrated no significant benefit from the addition of induction chemotherapy. The primary objective of this analysis was to dichotomize patients into prognostic groups using factors predictive of survival and to investigate whether induction chemotherapy was beneficial in either prognostic group.Patients and MethodsA Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the impact on survival of the following factors: (≥70 versus <70 years), gender, race, stage (IIIB versus IIIA), hemoglobin (hgb) (<13 versus ≥13 g/dl), performance status (PS) (1 versus 0), weight loss (≥5% versus <5%), treatment arm, and the interaction between weight loss and hgb.ResultsFactors predictive of decreased survival were weight loss ≥5%, age ≥70 years, PS of 1, and hgb <13 g/dl (p < 0.05). Patients were classified as having ≥2 poor prognostic factors (n = 165) or ≤1 factor (n = 166). The hazard ratio (HR) for overall survival for the patients with ≥2 versus patients with ≤1 was 1.88 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.49–2.37; p = <0.0001]; median survival times observed were 9 (95% CI, 8–11) and 18 (95% CI, 16–24) months, respectively. There was no significant difference in survival between treatment arms in patients with ≥2 factors (HR = 0.86, 95% CI, 0.63–1.17; p = 0.34) or ≤1 factor (HR = 0.97, 95% CI, 0.70–1.35; p = 0.87).ConclusionsThere is no evidence that induction chemotherapy is beneficial in either prognostic group.