CHEMOTHERAPY OF STAGE-IIIB AND STAGE-IV NON-SMALL-CELL LUNG-CANCER

Currently, lung cancer is a leading cause of death in men with more th an half million new cases diagnosed every year. Eighty percent of thes e tumors are non-small-cell carcinoma and 70% of these are unresectabl e or metastatic at the time of presentation, resulting in dramatically poor survival rates. The increasing number of drugs showing a signifi cant activity against non-small-cell lung cancer and the widespread us e of modern cisplatin based regimens offer some hope of progress and s uggest that chemotherapy may have a role in treating this disease. A r ecent meta-analysis has confirmed the modest but significant survival benefit for patients treated with combined chemotherapy both in case o f metastatic disease and in addition to radiotherapy, in locally advan ced disease.