Elderly patients with stage III
non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are frequently underrepresented in clinical trials that evaluate
chemoradiotherapy, due to their poor functional status, coexisting illnesses and limited life expectancy. The Japan Clinical Oncology Group 0301 trial (JCOG0301) was the first study to demonstrate that thoracic
radiation therapy (TRT) with daily low-dose
carboplatin may improve the outcome of elderly patients with stage III NSCLC. However, the efficacy and safety profiles of
chemoradiotherapy, including
platinum doublets, have not been clearly determined in this patient population. We retrospectively assessed the efficacy and toxicity of weekly
paclitaxel in combination with
carboplatin and concurrent TRT in patients aged ≥75 years with previously untreated locally advanced NSCLC. Between February, 2004 and July, 2013, we collected the data of 20 patients treated with weekly
paclitaxel and
carboplatin for 6 weeks and concurrent TRT. The objective response rate was 90%, the disease control rate was 95%, the median progression-free survival was 8.63 months [95% confidence interval (CI): 5.7-16.7] and the median overall survival (OS) was 16.1 months (95% CI: 10.7-41.6). There were no grade 4 hematological or non-hematological toxicities and no reported treatment-related deaths. Therefore,
platinum doublet
therapy in combination with TRT did not provide a clinically significant survival benefit in our population of elderly patients with locally advanced NSCLC. However, the present study demonstrated the good feasibility and safety of this regimen. Further prospective clinical trials are required to evaluate the efficacy and safety of
platinum doublet with TRT in elderly patients.