Chandra P. Belani, MD, Deputy Director, Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, Miriam Beckner Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Penn State Hershey Medical Center & College of Medicine, discusses recent changes to adjuvant therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Adjuvant therapy is the current standard of care for patients with resectable NSCLC. Various trials have suggested that the absolute improvement in overall survival from adjuvant treatment is 4.1-15%. Most practitioners assume an approximate 7-8% overall improvement.

Recent trials have suggested that new combinations such as cisplatin and pemetrexed have an equivalent effect, and may be more feasible, than the current standard of cisplatin plus vinorelbine or etoposide, which has recently been the focus of multiple studies.

While a comparison of these standards is not currently needed it has resulted in a paradigm shift in adjuvant care for early-stage resectable NSCLC, with the exception of patients with stage IA-IB that measures less than 4 cm.