Radiotherapy and targeted therapies in non-small-cell lung cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, and is diagnosed in nearly 30% of cases at a locally-advanced stage (stage III). Most of these tumors are not eligible for surgical resection, and therapeutic strategy mainly consists of chemoradiation, which allows to simultaneously achieve local and systemic tumor control. Concurrently with the technological optimization of radiotherapy, many studies have focused on the identification of genomic and molecular alterations associated with lung carcinogenesis, what led to design and make available specific inhibitors of these alterations. The promising results obtained with these targeted therapies in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer suggest that these inhibitors may be efficiently associated with radiotherapy in locally advanced tumors. An increasing number of reports describing the results of such combinations are now available, and are supported by many theoretical and experimental data. This review discusses in depth the results of concurrent combinations of radiotherapy with currently available targeted therapies in non-small cell lung cancer, namely EGFR-and VEGFR-inhibitors.