Treatment Strategies
Following presentation and diagnosis of NSCLC, thorough examination allows determination of the disease stage to provide a prognosis at the individual patient level. Ideally, the aim of any intervention or treatment is to improve the prognosis of the patient. The choice of treatment is dependent on the disease stage, the medical history of the patient and general state of health. The patient’s wishes must also be considered. This section will describe how decisions are made concerning the overall treatment strategy, the roles, advantages and disadvantages of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and the potential offered by the new, targeted therapies.
Overall strategy
The treatment strategies for NSCLC are principally dictated by clinical stage with modulation according to patient preferences and characteristics such as age and PS (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Lung cancer: stage at diagnosis, treatment, and 5-year survival rates.
