Is there a standard regimen for first-line treatment of advanced/metastatic Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer? What has meta-analyses contributed to today's standard of care.

Despite the fact that Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) represents the leading cause of cancer-related death in the western, after two decades of intensive clinical research, there still remains a substantial lack of consensus regarding the appropriate chemotherapeutic management of patients with advanced stage disease. For patients with metastatic disease and good performance status, what is considered "standard" treatment is a platinum-based doublet. Several meta-analyses have been performed in order to answer several questionable issues in the treatment of these patients. Their conclusions could be used as an effective instrument for resolving various clinical questions, such as advantage of chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC and identification of the most active combinations and most active agents, or treatment duration and thus providing more reliable evidence for clinical practice.