[Induction therapy for non-small cell lung cancer]

Induction therapy for non-small cell lung cancer was reviewed. Surgical therapy remains the treatment of choice for resectable non-small cell lung cancer. However, postoperative survival of the patients with locally advanced NSCLC is far from acceptable. Several phase II and phase III trials have been attempted to define whether surgical resection after induction therapy provides better local control and survival than surgery alone. Most studies have reported high response and resectability rates, and long-term follow up of two randomized trials shows that patients having cisplatin-based induction chemotherapy prior to surgical resection were significantly more likely to have better 5-year survival than patients operated without preoperative treatment. However, the results of the randomized trials are still controversial owing to the relatively small and inhomogeneous population used. To identify the future direction of effort in improving the therapy of NSCLC, more sophisticated randomized prospective trials should be conducted.