Treatment of early and locally advanced stages of non-small cell lung cancer

Treatment concepts for patients with localized and locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are based on local treatment, surgery and/or radiotherapy, with curative intent. An adjuvant systemic treatment is added after primary resection of an operable NSCLC primarily to reduce the systemic risk of relapse. Locally advanced stages with mediastinal lymph node involvement carry a substantial risk of local and distant recurrence and require multimodal treatment strategies in an interdisciplinary approach. Recently, immunotherapy with programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitors is increasingly being integrated into adjuvant, neoadjuvant or perioperative treatment concepts.