chemotherapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer: present and future

Chemotherapy in the status of treating advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) was established in 1995. Many researches proved that chemotherapy could significantly improve overall survival (OS) and reduce the risk of death in patients with advanced NSCLC when compared with supportive care. Treatment options for advanced NSCLC are diverse, such as chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and their combination therapies. Those all bring about different benefits for patients. In this article, chemotherapy was mainly discussed, and it was concluded that pemetrexed continuation maintenance therapy is the preferred option in the treatment of patients advanced non-squamous NSCLC, and has a broader clinical application than bevacizumab. Chemotherapy (gemcitabine) is the main force for the treatment of patients with advanced squamous cell lung cancer. In addition, though chemotherapy combined with other regimens promise better therapeutic effect, there still remain many problems to be resolved. For example, how to select the right patients? What is the best route of drug administration, the optimal chemotherapy regimen, and the optimal chemotherapy dose? Therefore, the era of chemotherapy-free is far from coming, and no matter what treatment regimen is selected, chemotherapy is always an indispensable part of treating advanced NSCLC in the past, present, and future.