Non-surgical therapy for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer is the major cancer problem in the Western World. Treatment and prognosis are highly stage dependent, although overall only 5-10% of patients will be alive 5 years after diagnosis. Patients with early stage disease are treated with surgery alone. However, for patients with locally advanced disease there is increasing evidence that combined modality approaches, incorporating chemotherapy, radiotherapy and/or surgery result in modest improvements in survival. For patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer there is evidence from metaanalyses and randomised studies that chemotherapy results in improvements in both duration and quality of life. Despite these advances, there is substantial room for further improvement and therefore, wherever possible, patients should be enrolled in well designed clinical studies.