Dr. Ravi Salgia from University of Chicago provides his general strategy for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who are candidates for maintenance therapy after first line treatment.

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Dr. Alan Sandler, Oregon Health and Science University, considers the various options for maintenance therapy as well as a potential treatment break after first line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

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Dr. Sarah Goldberg notes that while maintenance therapy after first line treatment of advanced NSCLC is always worthy of a discussion, many patients need and benefit from a break from treatment to recover before pursuing additional therapy.

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Dr. Phil Bonomi provides his views on the value of maintenance therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer and the various alternatives among maintenance therapies compared with a break from treatment.

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Here's a brief video I did for Swedish Cancer Institute that explains the basic concepts of maintenance therapy for advanced NSCLC.

I hope it's helpful to those of you just learning about what might come after first line therapy for advanced NSCLC.

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We've been producing a series of podcasts from our Lung Cancer Highlights from ASCO 2012 webinar, featuring Drs.

The first of several podcasts we'll be adding here from our ASCO 2012 Lung Cancer Highlights program, co-sponsored with LUNGevity Foundation, is with Dr. Mark Socinski, Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, who discussed the updated results of continuation maintenance therapy with Alimta (pemetrexed) on the PARAMOUNT trial.

Last year, the PARAMOUNT trial was one of the highlight presentations in lung cancer from ASCO 2011, an important landmark study of continuation maintenance therapy with Alimta (pemetrexed).

I'm at Swedish Hospital, not in Stockholm, Sweden now, where the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress is going on. But there, the preliminary results of the AVAPERL phase III randomized trial were just reported, and they certainly look encouraging for the combination of Alimta (pemetrexed) and Avastin (bevacizumab) as a maintenance therapy for patients with Avastin-eligible advanced NSCLC who hadn't progressed after four cycles of cisplatin/Alimta/Avastin, compared with maintenance Avastin alone.