Canadian researchers called for a new standard to fight early stage lung cancer with chemotherapy, which significantly improves survival rates.
The New England Journal of Medicine Thursday published results of a seven-year Canadian-U.S. study of 482 non-small cell lung cancer patients that showed 69 percent of those receiving chemotherapy survived five years compared to 54 percent who had surgery alone.
Chemotherapy-treated lung cancer sufferers also had a lower recurrence rate, 49 percent compared to 61 percent.
"With the very significant benefits documented in this study, we are recommending that a brief course of chemotherapy after surgery should be the new standard of care around the world," study leader and Canadian Cancer Society researcher Timothy Winton said.
Specialist Katherine Pisters of Anderson Cancer Center in Houston called the results "astonishing" in a Journal editorial.
The Canadian government and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline funded the research on lung cancer -- the No. 1 cancer killer in North America and a leading cancer killer worldwide.
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