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In the last decade dramatic improvements have been obtained in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. Thanks to the introduction in the clinical practice of new drugs such as Irinotecan and Oxaliplatin, and modern biological drugs such as Bevacizumab and Cetuximab, the response rate, progression-free and overall survival are about 50-60%, 9-11 and 20-24 months respectively. Despite this progress, many questions remain unsolved especially those related to the optimal duration of treatment and the role of maintenance therapy. To treat until progression (or unacceptable toxicity) is the classical way but in the common clinical practice is frequent to perform an induction therapy (until the maximum response is obtained) followed by a complete stop and restart on progression, or by a maintenance without the drug/s responsible of the major cumulative toxicities. The following report focus on the role of different strategies respect to the classic "treatment until progression"., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Capecitabine is an orally administered fluoropyrimidine carbamate which has been developed as a prodrug of 5-FU with the goal to improve its tolerability and intratumoral drug concentration. The review aims to provide an evidence-based update of clinical trials investigating the clinical efficacy, adverse-event profile, dosage and administration of this drug, alone or in combination with conventional chemotherapeutics and/or new target-oriented drugs, in the management of colorectal cancer patients., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including squamous carcinoma, adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma, accounting for about 85% of all lung cancer types with most of the patients presenting with advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. In this setting first-line platinum-based chemotherapy for no more than 4-6 cycles are recommended. After these cycles of treatment, non-progressing patients enter in the so called "watch and wait" period in which no further therapy is administered until there is disease progression. In order to improve the advanced NSCLC outcomes, the efficacy of further treatment in the "watch and wait" period was investigated. This is the "maintenance therapy". Recently, the results coming from randomized phase III trials investigating two new agents, pemetrexed and erlotinib, in this setting led to their registration for maintenance therapy. Here, we report and discuss these results., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)