Bronchial carcinoma. II. Quantitative measurements of the quality of survival. A prospective randomized study of the result of therapy in inoperable patients with advanced disease.

Forty-eight bronchial carcinoma patients in clinicoanatomical stage 4 of the disease (advanced disease) were randomly assigned to groups for radiotherapy, chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide) and placebo treatment, respectively. The results were assessed by the survival time and quality of survival. The median survival time was 4.7 months for radiotherapy, 4.7 months for cyclophosphamide and 1.7 months for placebo. The median total sum of vitagram points was 28.1 for radiotherapy, 20.7 for cyclophosphamide and 6.8 for placebo. When calculated per month, the median sum of vitagram points was 5.9 for radiotherapy, 5.7 for cyclophosphamide and 4.8 for placebo. Statistically the results give no reason to believe that placebo is better than radiotherapy, but it cannot be excluded that radiotherapy patients could have a much longer survival. As for cyclophosphamide versus radiotherapy, the differences are to uncertain for any conclusion to be drawn.