A new platinum-based cancer treatment is being hailed by its developers, who say it could potentially "shift the standard of care for patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer".

Sufferers of lung cancer are increasingly being treated with platinum-based therapies, but work done by the University of Alberta Hospital in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute of Canada is said to have delivered significant new results.

By adding Navelbine (vinorelbine) to Platinol (cisplatin) researchers found they could improve the five-year overall survival rate by 15 percentage points, cutting the risk of death by almost a third.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also show that the levels of toxicity induced by the treatment were acceptable.

Katherine M.W. Pisters, from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, described the results as "astonishing".

"On the basis of the data reported by Winton et al. and the supporting trials, the controversy surrounding adjuvant chemotherapy for resectable non-small-cell lung cancer is over," Dr Pisters said.

"Adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy should be recommended after complete resection of non-small-cell lung cancer in patients with a good performance status."

The phase III study examined 482 patients with cancer, with tests spanning over five years.