Combined chemotherapy with cisplatin, etoposide, and irinotecan versus topotecan alone as second-line treatment for patients with sensitive relapsed small-cell lung cancer (JCOG0605): a multicentre, open-label, randomised phase 3 trial

In a related editorial, the author comments that “the survival reported in this study is encouraging for the highly selected patients enrolled in the trial, but previous experience suggests that promising initial results might not be reproducible in other populations. Although nobody is happy with the status quo, further study is needed before the cisplatin, etoposide, and irinotecan combination can be accepted as the standard treatment for patients with relapsed small-cell lung cancer”.