title: Annual review of advances in lung cancer clinical research: a report for the year 2009.
abstract: The use of positron emission tomography compared with conventional staging increases the detection of extrathoracic metastases and reduces the number futile thoracotomies in patients being evaluated for surgical resection. Long-term follow-up of one of the two adjuvant chemotherapy trials revealed a continued overall survival (OS) benefit to adjuvant chemotherapy. In locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial of chemoradiotherapy alone and with surgical resection revealed no statistically significant difference in OS between the treatment arms. In advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial compared gefitinib with carboplatin and paclitaxel in a clinically enriched patient population for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase (TK) mutations; among patients with an EGFR TK mutation, patients in gefitinib arm compared with carboplatin and paclitaxel arm experienced a statistically significant superior response rate and progression-free survival, and among patients without EGFR TK mutation patients in the gefitinib arm compared with carboplatin and paclitaxel experienced a statistically significant inferior response rate and progression-free survival. A phase III trial of platinum-based therapy with and without cetuximab in the first-line setting revealed improved OS in the cetuximab arm. A phase III trial of maintenance pemetrexed compared with placebo in patients who had not progressed after initial platinum-based therapy revealed an improvement in OS of patients in the pemetrexed arm with nonsquamous histology. In limited-stage small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial compared standard and high-dose prophylactic cranial irradiation and revealed no significant difference in the rate of brain metastases between the two treatment arms.
authors.affiliation: Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7305, USA. thomas_stinchcombe@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Stinchcombe
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bogart
authors.forename: Dennis A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Wigle
authors.forename: Ramaswamy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Govindan
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D017326:Clinical Trials, Phase III as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy