Treatment Strategies
Future Strategies
Different approaches are being taken to develop treatment strategies for NSCLC depending on the stage in question. These may be summarised as follows:
-
New systemic chemotherapy options
-
New chemoradiotherapy regimens
-
Examining the timing of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in relation to surgery
-
Improvements in radiotherapy (fractionation, dose intensity, protection from chemoradiotherapy toxicity)
-
Integration of targeted cancer therapies (such as the HER1/EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors [TKIs]) into current treatment programmes.
In the last 20 years, chemotherapy has become a central component of the various treatment strategies for NSCLC at all stages and this will be examined further in the following section. Although advances in treatment have clearly been made, the rate at which patient prognosis has improved has slowed over recent years. Thus, there remains an unmet clinical need for drugs with better efficacy and improved tolerability. This need has driven the development of new, targeted agents such as TarcevaTM, gefitinib, and cetuximab. These agents are characterised by their precise action on mechanisms, which are central to the survival and proliferation of cancer cells.
