Maintenance therapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the advances of maintenance therapy in NSCLC, and discuss the significance of this therapeutic method. METHODS: The full text database of PubMed and CNKI were searched, and the words "NSCLC, maintenance therapy" were used as key words. Totally 284 related articles were retrieved between the year of 2001 and 2011 in all, then 25 were analyzed. RESULTS: Maintenance therapy emerged as a new viewpoint in these years in order to prolong the overall survival and to improve quality of life for patients with advanced NSCLC. At present, many clinical trials have demonstrated that the patients with advanced NSCLC who achieved CR, PR and SD after the first-line chemotherapy could be significantly prolonged Progression-free survival(PFS) and overall survival(OS) if they received continued maintenance therapy. The tolerance was well. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with advanced NSCLC can benefit from the maintenance therapy. However, the final therapeutic effect is closely related to the pathological type, EGFR mutation, physical condition and tolerance to chemotherapy of each patient. Individual therapy that combines with the practical status of each patient is considerated to be the future direction.