The prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer continues to be poor. Multimodality treatment strategies including chemotherapy are indicated for almost all stages of the disease. To be able to customize chemotherapy based on individual patients' clinical or biological markers is a priority for translational research. Several possible markers need to be validated. In this review, we will discuss the potential of ERCC1 (excision repair cross complementary group 1) to predict sensitivity to cisplatinum, of tubuline-beta, class III for vinca-alkaloids and taxanes, RRM1 (ribonucleotide transferase subunit 1) for gemcitabine and lastly demographic parameters as well biological parameters for erlotinib. Data will be presented separately for patients with metastatic disease and for those where it is localized.