High dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow rescue for small cell lung cancer]

The efficacy of high dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow rescue (ABMR) was given to 10 patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Four patients received high dose methotrexate plus ABMR followed by chest irradiation. Six patients giving complete response after induction chemotherapy were given intensive chemotherapy plus ABMR only. The over-all survival of these 10 patients was 30.5 months with a range of 6-96 months. Five of them are surviving as of this writing, 3 survived for more than two years and 2 for more than 5 years. Toxic reactions were not severe. Systemic metastasis was the Leading cause of treatment failure. ABMR was effective and safe. When combined with radiotherapy ABMR could be expected to improve the result of intensive chemotherapy for limited SCLC.