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Because most patients with small cell cancer of the lung present with distant metastatic disease, the treatment is almost always medical therapies without surgery. However, a small number of patients present with resectable disease, and this review summarizes the available literature addressing the possible role for surgery in the treatment of these patients.

Mesothelioma is a rare malignancy of the pleura with limited therapeutic options. Despite the desperate need to develop better treatment for this disease, the rarity of the tumor type creates formidable challenges in clinical research. Nonetheless, several novel agents are under investigation. Most efforts are directed toward improving standard first-line therapy with pemetrexed and cisplatin, or developing effective second-line treatments. Several classes of drugs are being explored, including those that impact DNA transcription, cell-cycle progression, angiogenesis, and immune tolerance. This article describes several ongoing or recently completed phase II and III trials using novel agents vorinostat, everolimus, CBP501, MORAb-009, NGR-hTNF, WT1 vaccine, bevacizumab, cediranib, and thalidomide.

Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors are a distinct subset of tumors composing approximately 20% of all lung cancers. The major categories of pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors include typical and atypical carcinoids, large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma, and the more common small cell lung cancer. They are classified into different categories in the 2004 World Health Organization system, but share structural and morphologic features. Despite these shared features, their clinical characteristics range from indolent to aggressive, and therefore the approach to treatment depends on the histologic subtype. This article discusses the current understanding of the epidemiology, pathologic characteristics, treatment, and prognosis of this spectrum of diseases.

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.

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.

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.

These NCCN Guidelines Insights focus on recent updates to the 2015 NCCN Guidelines for Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Appropriate targeted therapy is very effective in patients with advanced NSCLC who have specific genetic alterations. Therefore, it is important to test tumor tissue from patients with advanced NSCLC to determine whether they have genetic alterations that make them candidates for specific targeted therapies. These NCCN Guidelines Insights describe the different testing methods currently available for determining whether patients have genetic alterations in the 2 most commonly actionable genetic alterations, notably anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements and sensitizing epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations.