[Maintenance therapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer].

Maintenance therapy is a new treatment strategy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer(NSCLC), and it consists of switch maintenance and continuation maintenance.Switch maintenance is the introduction of a different drug, not included as part of the induction therapy, immediately after completion of 4 cycles of first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.Continuation maintenance is a continuation of at least one of the drugs used in the induction therapy in the absence of disease progression.Several phase III trials have reported survival benefits with continuation maintenance of pemetrexed and switch maintenance of pemetrexed or erlotinib.Therefore, maintenance therapy has become a part of the standard first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC.However, further research is needed to elucidate the selection criteria of patients who may benefit the most from maintenance therapy.