[Chemotherapy in advanced non small cell lung cancer]. / Apport de la chimiotherapie dans le cancer bronchique non a petites cellules aux stades avances.

Lung cancer is the world's first cause of death by cancer. Locally advanced and metastatic non small cell cancers represent 2/3rd of cases at diagnosis and are of worst prognosis. We conducted a retrospective study of 202 patients to investigate the effect of chemotherapy on survival and quality of life. 95 patients received chemotherapy with VP16-CDDP (88%) or Gemcitabin-CDDP. Improvement survival was observed in the chemotherapy group: 8 month IC 95% [6.6-9.3] 4 month IC 95% [3.1-4.9] in the control group. Chemotherapy also had a good perfect on the quality of life with improvement of performance status, symptoms and need of analgesic. However although significant, the role of chemotherapy in NSCLC remains modest and new therapeutic approaches are needed including prevention and early detection which are probably more effective and cheaper.