Objective To assess the effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy with complete resection for non-small cell lung cancer. Methods We searched MEDLINE （1966 ～ 2005 ）, EMBASE （1984-2005 ）, The Cochrane Library （Issue 2,2005 ）, CBMdisc （1979-2005 ）, CNKI （1994-2005 ）, VIP （1989-2005 ）, CMCC （1994-2005 ） and Wanfang Database with key words of non-small cell lung cancer or NSCLC and adjuvant chemotherapy, to identify randomized control trials （RCTs） of platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy plus complete resection versus complete resection alone for non-small cell lung cancer patients. Two reviewers evaluated the quality of literature independently. Then we conducted meta-analysis using RevMan 4.2.7 software. Results We identified 9 RCTs and did not carry out pool analysis for the difference of chemotherapy regimens between the studies. The results of three studies showed that 5 years＇ mortality of adjuvant chemotherapy group was lower than that of surgery group alone. The results of the other 6 studies showed there was no statistical difference in 5 years＇ mortality between the adjuvant chemotherapy plus surgery and surgery alone groups. Conclusions The effectiveness of some adjuvant chemotherapy regimens with complete resection in patients with non-small cell lung cancer has been improved. But the number of each chemotherapy regimen RCT is too small and with poor quality. So more multi-center RCTs with a larger sample size and high quality are needed.
