The use of positron emission tomography compared with conventional staging increases the detection of extrathoracic metastases and reduces the number futile thoracotomies in patients being evaluated for surgical resection. Long-term follow-up of one of the two adjuvant chemotherapy trials revealed a continued overall survival (OS) benefit to adjuvant chemotherapy. In locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial of chemoradiotherapy alone and with surgical resection revealed no

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... statistically significant difference in OS between the treatment arms. In advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial compared gefitinib with carboplatin and paclitaxel in a clinically enriched patient population for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase (TK) mutations; among patients with an EGFR TK mutation, patients in gefitinib arm compared with carboplatin and paclitaxel arm experienced a statistically significant superior response rate and progression-free survival, and among patients without EGFR TK mutation patients in the gefitinib arm compared with carboplatin and paclitaxel experienced a statistically significant inferior response rate and progression-free survival. A phase III trial of platinum-based therapy with and without cetuximab in the first-line setting revealed improved OS in the cetuximab arm. A phase III trial of maintenance pemetrexed compared with placebo in patients who had not progressed after initial platinum-based therapy revealed an improvement in OS of patients in the pemetrexed arm with nonsquamous histology. In limited-stage small cell lung cancer, a phase III trial compared standard and high-dose prophylactic cranial irradiation and revealed no significant difference in the rate of brain metastases between the two treatment arms.