Abstract
Non-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC) account for a major part of all lung cancer diagnoses. The current literature review is aimed to analyze the varied chemotherapeutic treatment regimens available and to provide a standard for their use in the present and future scenarios. The current literature review focuses on platinum, non-platinum and combination therapeutic modalities, in the first and second line setting. The review also ensures that docetaxel and/or gemcitabine is a part of the study. A PubMed search for NSCLC identified 70,077 articles. A total of 36 research articles were obtained following the application of keywords and inclusion/exclusion criteria to narrow down our search to meet with the research objective. These articles consider NSCLC and chemotherapeutic treatment modalities as its primary endpoint. These 36 articles included 15 randomized clinical trials, five randomized control trials, five retrospective cohort studies, one case-control study, six review articles and four observational studies. Our analysis shows that there is an increasing potential for the use of non-platinum based drugs in the clinical setting with an efficacy that is at par with that of platinum-based treatment modalities. In fact, the studies have proven a greater advantage with the use of combination therapy (non-platinum + platinum), which can be readily applied as an alternative in the clinical setting while the use of non-platinum drugs (other than docetaxel) as a monotherapy or in combination with other non-platinum based drugs does require further research.
Highlights
BackgroundNon-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC) account for about 80-85% of all lung cancer diagnoses [1]
Our analysis shows that there is an increasing potential for the use of non-platinum based drugs in the clinical setting with an efficacy that is at par with that of platinum-based treatment modalities
The studies have proven a greater advantage with the use of combination therapy, which can be readily applied as an alternative in the clinical setting while the use of non-platinum drugs as a monotherapy or in combination with other non-platinum based drugs does require further research
Summary
BackgroundNon-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC) account for about 80-85% of all lung cancer diagnoses [1]. The main sub-types are adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and large cell carcinomas These carcinomas arise from different types of lung cells but are grouped together as NSCLC. The incidence of mortality is high, especially in the case of advanced NSCLC, chemotherapeutic drugs have proved effective in increasing the overall survival (OS) rate [1]. The last one to two decades saw the advent of non-platinum based regimens involving drugs like docetaxel and gemcitabine into the market which were seen as potential alternatives for the traditional platinum-based therapy. While platinum-based therapy is associated with an increased risk of toxicity, it is imperative to come up with newer treatment regimens that can replace or reduce this risk of toxicity while proving to be efficient in terms of overall survival
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