The National Cancer Center has developed a new treatment for lung cancer.

The center on Thursday said its combination of compound anti-cancer medicine and radiotherapy increased the two-year survival rate of small-cell lung cancer patients to 54 percent.

It conducted six months of clinical tests on 35 patients with small-cell lung cancer in 2001.

Small-cell lung cancer, accounting for 20 percent of all lung cancer patients, is hard to cure because it quickly spreads throughout the body.

The study appears in the May edition of the American Society of Clinical Oncology's journal.