Adjuvant treatment for resectable non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background: Low-dose chest computed tomography is being increasingly used to screen for lung cancer, and the proportion of early diagnoses of patients with lung cancer in potentially resectable stages is increasing. After complete resection, reducing the possibility of postoperative relapse is of the utmost priority. In this review, recent updates in adjuvant treatment for resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were briefly explained. Current Concepts: Even though platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy was traditionally used, there was only a small increase in overall survival and a 15% decrease in relapse. Discussion and Conclusion: With the advent of immunotherapy and epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, the landscape of adjuvant treatment for completely resectable NSCLC is rapidly changing. The ADAURA study showed that adjuvant osimertinib, regardless of prior platinum-based postoperative chemotherapy, significantly extended disease-free progression survival in epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-positive patients with resectable NSCLC. The IMpower010 study showed that postoperative atezolizumab can be an option in patients without targetable mutations for reducing the possibility of postoperative relapse. Postoperative radiotherapy can be beneficial for patients with lymph node metastases (N2).