Nonsurgical Combined Modality Therapies in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

¹ From the Service de Médecine et Laboratoire de'Investigation Clinique H.J. Tagnon, Institut Jules Bordet, Centre des Tumeurs de l'Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

Nonsurgical combined approaches of non-small cell lung cancer represent a concept that has only been investigated so far with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Thoracic irradiation of locoregional disease is associated with a high rate of local control and a 5-10% long-term (5-year) survival; however, distant metastases remain the main cause of failure. This observation suggests that the tumor is often microscopically disseminated at the time of diagnosis. Systemic therapy therefore must be associated to radiation therapy to try to control both the undetectable metastases and the local disease. However, the results reported so far have been disappointing, probably because of the modest activity of the available chemotherapy. Further progress with the combined approach requires new developments in the chemotherapy of non-small cell lung cancer, particularly the introduction of new active drugs.