ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Thoracic Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1636533
This article is part of the Research TopicReal-World Data and Real-World Evidence in Lung Cancer Volume IIView all 11 articles
Real-World Survival Patterns and Multimodal Therapy Utilization in Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Retrospective Cohort Study in a Chinese Countryside Hospital
Provisionally accepted
Taosheng HuangLinjie MaMingfang WangXumei PangJiying XuXi ChenYutao Xia
Min YanWenxiang Zhao
Congcong ChengRunqing Wang
Kai Sun*
Peng Wang*- Department of Oncology, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, China
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This retrospective cohort study evaluated real-world survival outcomes and multimodal therapy utilization by analyzing 132 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients treated between 2014 and 2023 in Weifang Yidu Central Hospital Oncology Department.The patients were divided based on VALG staging into limited-stage (LS) and extensive-stage (ES) disease. The most patients received platinum-etoposide-based regimens (EC/EP) as first-line therapy, with subsequent treatments escalating to second-line (n=96), third-line (n=51), and fourth-line (n=22) therapies. Key findings indicated that prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) demonstrated a numerically superior, albeit statistically non-significant, trend towards improved overall survival (OS) in both limited-stage (LS-SCLC) and extensive-stage (ES-SCLC) small cell lung cancer, with a median OS of 50.2 months compared to 36.4 months in the control group. Additionally, concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) was associated with a significant survival advantage over sequential chemoradiotherapy (SCRT) in patients with LS-SCLC.Advanced-line therapies yielded limited efficacy , with cumulative toxicities exacerbating treatment attrition. Palliative thoracic radiotherapy was associated with a numerically longer, albeit statistically non-significant, overall survival and demonstrated a trend toward improved survival outcomes that did not reach statistical significance in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC).These findings provided real-world evidence for the usage of CCRT and PCI in LS-SCLC meanwhile the palliative radiotherapy of ES-SCLC.
Keywords: SCLC - small cell lung cancer, Raditherapy, Chemotherap, CCRT, Prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI)
Received: 18 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Ma, Wang, Pang, Xu, Chen, Xia, Yan, Zhao, Cheng, Wang, Sun and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kai Sun, kai.sun_cn@outlook.com
Peng Wang, wangpeng1920@sohu.com
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