Neoadjuvant concurrent chemotherapy and radiotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract. Radiotherapy was the standard treatment for patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer until the mid 1990s. Chemotherapy was added in order to improve outcome, and during the last decade sequential, concurrent or mixed modalities have been extensively explored and discussed. Goals of neoadjuvant chemoradiation are resecability and downstaging. Recent published experiences evidenced that neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is feasible if delivered with low total dose and limited volume; pathological downstaging to stage 0-I could be a reasonable surrogate end-point for overall and disease free survival and for distant metastasis.