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Biomarker testing is recommended for all patients diagnosed with non–small cell lung cancer. At a minimum, testing should include the mutations/fusions EGFR, ALK, ROS1, and the protein programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1), because FDA-approved therapies are available for these alterations. Other actionable molecular findings include RET rearrangements, BRAF^V600E mutations, and MET exon 14 alterations. If adequate testing was not performed at treatment initiation, molecular testing should be performed before administration of subsequent lines of therapy. In patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancer, when resistance develops, physicians should seek to identify the T790M mutation using plasma and tissue assays, because osimertinib therapy is available for this mutation.

Updates to the NCCN Guidelines for Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) for 2021 include recommendations for biomarker testing in all appropriate patients with newly diagnosed advanced lung cancer, including squamous cell lung cancer. When a targetable genetic alteration is detected, the NCCN Guidelines recommend treatment with a first-line therapy targeted to that alteration. The guidelines contain new information on use of adjuvant treatment with osimertinib for resected early-stage EGFR-mutated NSCLC. New targeted agents are now recommended for the treatment of ALK rearrangements, RET alterations, MET exon 14 skipping mutations in patients with advanced NSCLC; and new immunotherapy agents are recommended for advanced NSCLC without a driver oncogene.

Most patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are diagnosed with advanced cancer. These guidelines only include information about stage IV NSCLC. Patients with widespread metastatic disease (stage IV) are candidates for systemic therapy, clinical trials, and/or palliative treatment. The goal is to identify patients with metastatic disease before initiating aggressive treatment, thus sparing these patients from unnecessary futile treatment. If metastatic disease is discovered during surgery, then extensive surgery is often aborted. Decisions about treatment should be based on multidisciplinary discussion.

This selection from the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) focuses on the principles of radiation therapy (RT), which include the following: (1) general principles for early-stage, locally advanced, and advanced/metastatic NSCLC; (2) target volumes, prescription doses, and normal tissue dose constraints for early-stage, locally advanced, and advanced/palliative RT; and (3) RT simulation, planning, and delivery. Treatment recommendations should be made by a multidisciplinary team, including board-certified radiation oncologists who perform lung cancer RT as a prominent part of their practice.

This selection from the NCCN Guidelines for Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) focuses on targeted therapies and immunotherapies for metastatic NSCLC, because therapeutic recommendations are rapidly changing for metastatic disease. For example, new recommendations were added for atezolizumab, ceritinib, osimertinib, and pembrolizumab for the 2017 updates.

Masses in the anterior mediastinum can be neoplasms (eg, thymomas, thymic carcinomas, or lung metastases) or non-neoplastic conditions (eg, intrathoracic goiter). Thymomas are the most common primary tumor in the anterior mediastinum, although they are rare. Thymic carcinomas are very rare. Thymomas and thymic carcinomas originate in the thymus. Although thymomas can spread locally, they are much less invasive than thymic carcinomas. Patients with thymomas have 5-year survival rates of approximately 78%. However, 5-year survival rates for thymic carcinomas are only approximately 40%. These guidelines outline the evaluation, treatment, and management of these mediastinal tumors.

The NCCN Guidelines for Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) address all aspects of management for NSCLC. These NCCN Guidelines Insights focus on recent updates in immunotherapy. For the 2020 update, all of the systemic therapy regimens have been categorized using a new preference stratification system; certain regimens are now recommended as “preferred interventions,” whereas others are categorized as either “other recommended interventions” or “useful under certain circumstances.”