Chemotherapy used to be the only available option to fight advanced
nonsmall cell lung cancer.
Platinum-based medication combined with
taxanes,
vinca alkaloids, and
antimetabolites improved patient survival rates. Unfortunately, neoplasmatic diseases remain a global killer because
chemotherapy benefits have reached a plateau and most patients are diagnosed at the metastatic stage. The urgent need for therapeutic agents, along with advances in the knowledge of the molecular events of
oncogenesis, has resulted in the development of medication that specifically targets processes and pathways critical for
tumor growth, such as angiogenesis and the
epidermal growth factor receptor. Initially, inhibiting these pathways managed to prolong patient survival, although not to the extent desired. Moreover, targeted
therapy combined with conventional
cytotoxic agents has shown no superiority to
chemotherapy alone in terms of patient survival. Hence, numerous multidynamic agents have appeared in the hope that they might help fight
nonsmall cell lung cancer. However, no group of patients who will hopefully gain maximum benefit from such interventions has been clearly identified yet. This paper presents current evidence with regard to such novel agents and angiogenesis and
epidermal growth factor inhibitors.