BMC Cancer 2009, 9:130 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/9/130 eligible for the major lung cancer trials E1594, SWOG 9509 and TAX356. There is a lack of evidence-based data on which to base treatment decisions in the majority of patients with advanced NSCLC. The optimal treatment for these patients is not known. Our recommendations are that future trials need to be developed with more liberal eligibility and/or to target specific subsets of patients within the population with advanced NSCLC to ensure that results are applicable to more patients. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors' contributions JV and SJC were responsible for concept and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data and writing of the manuscript. RD contributed to acquisi- tion of data. PB and MB contributed to study design and patient recruitment. All authors reviewed the manuscript. 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