Trends and perspectives in multimodality therapy of locoregionally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

In recent years progress has been made in the therapy of patients with stag e III non-small cell lung cancer. Induction chemotherapy and concomitant ch emoradiotherapy have been proven to be superior to radiation therapy alone for unresectable stage disease. In direct comparisons of induction and conc omitant chemoradiotherapy, the latter has been found to lead to higher medi an survival times, albeit at the cost of increased toxicity within the irra diated field. Additional trials have explored the administration of both in duction chemotherapy and concomitant chemoradiotherapy in sequence and the integration of the taxanes, gemcitabine and vinorelbine and irinotecan into the multimodality therapy setting. These and other novel concepts are disc ussed. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.