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Potential treatment options after first-line chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC: maintenance treatment or early second-line?
Potential treatment options after first-line chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC: maintenance treatment or early second-line?
- Source :
- The oncologist. 14(2)
- Publication Year :
- 2009
-
Abstract
- Although substantial progress has been made in the therapeutic options currently available for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the overall survival profile remains poor for most patients. One of the strategies currently under investigation with the aim of prolonging survival in NSCLC patients is maintenance treatment with either a chemotherapeutic agent or a molecularly targeted agent after first-line chemotherapy. Moreover, this can consist of drugs included in the induction regimen or other noncrossresistant agents. With the currently available data, maintenance treatment with a different noncrossresistant agent (i.e., an early second-line treatment) is perhaps the most promising strategy. The drug chosen for the early second-line treatment should be a well-tolerated agent, considering that patients have just completed a particularly toxic platinum-based chemotherapy. Extending treatment with targeted agents rather than chemotherapy can provide longer progression-free and overall survival times without increasing toxicity. However, at the moment, only progression-free survival has been shown to be consistently superior with maintenance approaches; the evaluation of survival benefits is warranted before defining this strategy as a possible treatment option. Further studies are warranted to establish the role of maintenance chemotherapy in patients with advanced NSCLC.
- Subjects :
- Oncology
Drug
Cancer Research
medicine.medical_specialty
Chemotherapy
Lung Neoplasms
business.industry
medicine.medical_treatment
media_common.quotation_subject
Treatment options
Surgery
Regimen
Second line
Drug Delivery Systems
Internal medicine
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung
Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols
medicine
Overall survival
Humans
Non small cell
First line chemotherapy
business
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1549490X
- Volume :
- 14
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The oncologist
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....6f4fdc44351cba88dc2007fa7dfd0e34