Report of a prospective trial--split course versus conventional radiotherapy in the treatment of non small cell lung cancer.

A prospective randomized trial was started in January 1982, to compare morbidity and survival of two different radiation regimens for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The trial was closed in December 1988. One group of patients was treated by conventional daily radiation therapy, and the other group by split course therapy. To maintain uniformity, a single physician staged and treated all patients and noted morbidity during treatment. Two hundred seventy-three consecutive lung cancer patients were treated. Only patients who completed the full radiation therapy course were included in this study. One hundred fourteen patients were treated with split course therapy, and 159 patients were treated by conventional daily radiation therapy. A few patients did not return for the second course of treatment, which accounts for the different number of patients in the two arms of the study. There was no statistically significant difference in survival between the two arms. Median survival for the split course and the continuous fraction therapy regimens was 11.6 months and 10.9 months, respectively. Split course radiation was associated with less morbidity.