Etoposide/cisplatin is the standard chemotherapy regimen used in the United States for the treatment of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). A wide variety of dose and schedules have been employed when managing these patients. We conducted an analysis of the phase II/III trials of etoposide/cisplatin in the past 20 years to determine whether the dose and cycle of either drug affected outcomes in patients with extensive SCLC. We identified 15 phase I/II studies, which included 1419 patients. Etoposide doses per cycle ranged from 180 mg/m(2) to 510 mg/m(2) and cisplatin doses per cycle ranged from 80 mg/m2 to 280 mg/m(2). With logistic regression analysis, we found that increasing doses of etoposide resulted in increased complete response rates (P = 0.01) but had no impact on overall response rates. Cisplatin dose per cycle had no influence on complete or overall response. With linear regression analysis, we were unable to find a relationship between survival and dose per cycle of etoposide or cisplatin. Variations in the administration of this regimen had no impact on outcomes in patients with extensive SCLC.