[Short history of the clinical developments in lung cancer treatment]

Through the 1980's and the early part of the 1990's several new anti-cancer drugs to fight lung cancer were clinically introduced, bringing cytotoxic chemotherapy to play an important role as a mainstay in the combined modality therapy for both small cell and non-small cell lung cancer. This is different from the state prior to the introduction of these drugs. There is no need to say that these advances were supported by the unceasing efforts of oncologists and their patience in performing the many randomized controlled trials. This review attempts to summarize the history of the clinical developments in lung cancer treatment since the beginning of the 20th century.