Phase Ia/Ib chemo-radiation trial of gemcitabine and dose-escalated thoracic radiation in patients with stage III A/B non-small cell lung cancer.

Introduction: The safety of dose-escalated thoracic radiation concurrent with gemcitabine in patients with inoperable stage III non-small cell lung cancer has not been studied.

Patients And Materials: The maximal tolerated dose of 35 mg/m twice-weekly gemcitabine and concurrent standard thoracic radiation was established in a previous phase Ia trial. In this study, a second patient cohort (phase Ib) received twice-weekly gemcitabine concurrent with three-dimensional dose-escalated thoracic radiation (60-74 Gy) after two cycles of induction chemotherapy: gemcitabine (1000 mg/m) day 1 and 8 and carboplatin (area under the curve 5.