Consensus conference on medical treatment of non-small cell lung cancer: adjuvant treatment

The 5-year survival rate for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who undergo complete surgical resection is only 40-69%, depending on the stage. It is well known that distant metastatic disease is the dominant site of recurrence in such patients and this observation served as the basis for trials of postoperative systemic therapy. The earliest trials of adjuvant chemotherapy, which consisted of single alkylating agents, did not achieve this goal or, even worse, showed a detrimental effect on survival. The introduction of more active drugs, such as cisplatin and vinca alkaloids, made it possible to obtain more promising results in terms of delayed recurrence of the disease. A recent meta-analysis of all randomized trials with accrual from January 1965 to December 1991 showed that the absolute risk of death was reduced by 3% at 2 years and by 5% at 5 years for patients who were treated with postoperative cisplatin-containing regimens compared with patients who were treated with surgery alone. Although the results of this meta-analysis suggest that postoperative cisplatin chemotherapy regimens may result in a slight survival improvement, adjuvant chemotherapy in NSCLC cannot be considered a standard therapy, and it is important that large, carefully conducted, randomized trials are performed in this group of patients. Four such randomized trials are being conducted in Europe. One of them, the ALPI trial, recently completed its accrual with 1200 patients. The IALT, ANITA, and MRC trials are still ongoing. The results of such trials are eagerly awaited and it is hoped that, once the value of postoperative chemotherapy is well ascertained, future developments can further improve results of combined treatment. In such direction, the recently reported results of PORT meta-analysis evaluating the role of radiation therapy are of great contribution in selecting a suitable population for future studies. In fact, only patients with pN2 disease seem to have a beneficial effect in terms of survival, especially if they have a good performance status, while radiotherapy is not justified in N0-1 patients. The optimal integration of chemotherapy and radiation therapy when both therapies are indicated represents another goal for future research.