In the last decade, major progress in the treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer has been made through the better understanding of the molecular biology of lung cancer, identification of new oncogene drivers and development of oncogene-directed drugs. Oncogene-directed therapies with EGFR or anaplastic lymphoma kinase tyrosine kinase inhibitors became standard practice in patients with activating EGFR mutations or anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangements, improving median survival rates to up to 35 months. Encouragingly, there are still numerous other targeted drugs and treatment strategies under development. In addition, nowadays chemotherapy can be tailored based on histology of the primary tumor and response to induction chemotherapy, raising median survival rates up to 13 months. These major developments, both in oncogene- and non-oncogene-directed therapies is presented in this review, together with a further designation of the most relevant future strategies, such as immunotherapy.
Keywords: advanced disease; non-oncogene-directed therapies; non-small-cell lung cancer; oncogene-directed therapies; systemic therapies.