Chemotherapy for advanced lung cancer. When to expect a response

Chemotherapy has been shown to lengthen survival in patients with stage IIIA NSCLC when used pre-operatively (major response rates of 50% to 75%). Chemotherapy in combination with radiation for unresectable stage IIIA or IIIB disease has also improved survival rates. Major response rates of 10% to 30% are reported in cases of stage IV disease. Chemotherapy is now remarkably successful in achieving response in patients with limited SCLC, and 5-year survival rates as high as 10% to 15% are reported. Further increases in the 5-year survival rate will depend on improved chemotherapeutic treatment of nonsurgical disease. Research in the 1990s has presented a number of new chemotherapeutic agents with promising activity against this recalcitrant disease.