Combination therapy with platinum preparations still occupies a central position 
in chemotherapy for lung cancer. Third-generation regimens that combine an 
anticancer drug and a platinum preparation that were published in the 1990s 
remain standard therapy for untreated non-small-cell lung cancer today. 
Cisplatin or carboplatin is used as the platinum preparation, but combination 
therapy with cisplatin has been found to have a greater antitumor effect than 
combination therapy with carboplatin. However, there is very little difference 
between them, and on balance, when adverse reactions, etc. are taken into 
consideration, we do not think that it makes much difference which one of them 
is used. Clinical studies of combinations between platinum preparations and 
pemetrexed and S-1, which have been developed since 2000, have been conducted 
recently. Docetaxel has been established as standard therapy for recurrent 
cases, but based on the results of recent comparative studies, a 
survival-prolonging effect has been shown for pemetrexed and for EGFR tyrosine 
kinase inhibitors (gefitinib, erlotinib), which are molecularly targeted drugs, 
and it has now become possible to select treatment methods by choosing from a 
number of anticancer drugs. EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors have been 
demonstrated to have a very high cytoreductive effect on lung cancers that have 
EGFR gene mutations. The frequency of EGFR gene mutations is high in East Asia, 
including Japan, whereas it is very low in Western countries. Thus, the future 
course of development of chemotherapy for non-small-cell lung cancer may differ 
in Western countries and Asia, and the method of using EGFR tyrosine kinase 
inhibitors is expected to have great implications in Asia.