The primary objective is to determine the progression free survival for patients with stage III B with malignant pleural effusion or Stage IV NSCLC treated with docetaxel and carboplatin with or without suramin.~The secondary objectives are to compare median overall survival rate, compare overall response rate of patients in both arms, assess toxicity of suramin with docetaxel and carboplatin, determine whether pre-treatment bFGF levels correlate with survival, to determine whether survival benefit from suramin is associated with M phase entry in peripheral blood lymphocytes, and to determine whether adding suramin to docetaxel and carboplatin produces greater survival benefits in African-American patients.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the benefit of adding suramin at a non-cytotoxic dose to carboplatin and docetaxel regimen in the treatment of chemo-naïve patients with non-small cell lung cancer.