**1. Introduction**

Lung cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with approximately 2.1 million new cases (11.6% of the total new cases) and 1.76 million deaths (18.4% of the total deaths) [1,2]. Of the two major types of lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for about 85% to 90% of all lung cancers, which typically has a slower rate and double time than small cell lung cancer [3,4].

Among several treatment options for NSCLC treatment recommended by the latest updated National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline, targeted cancer therapy with various pathways is one of the new generations of cancer treatments [5]. Some cell surface receptors such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), and receptor of silencing 1 (ROS1) are overactive in the pathology of NSCLC [6,7]. Also, B-Raf proto-oncogene (BRAF), kirsten rat sarcoma 2 viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) and a kinase upstream of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK) have generated recent interest [8]. Other inhibitors of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), 'rearranged during transfection' proto-oncogene (RET), and tyrosine-protein kinase Met (MET) have also been approved for the treatment of NSCLC [9–11]. Although the efficacy of targeted therapies has been evaluated through large-scale randomized controlled trials and has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), their comparative efficacy has not been investigated.

Therefore, we performed a network meta-analysis (NMA) of clinical trials to compare and rank targeted therapies for the treatment of patients with NSCLC.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

#### *2.1. Search Strategy and Keywords*

Eligible studies were identified by searching PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane library, and Clinicaltrials.gov databases from their inception until September 19, 2018, limiting to human subjects and a clinical trial. The keywords for literature search were as follows: 'ado-trastuzumab', 'afatinib', 'alectinib', 'bevacizumab', 'brigatinib', 'cabozantinib', 'ceritinib', 'cetuximab', 'crizotinib', 'dabrafenib', 'erlotinib', 'gefitinib', 'osimertinib', 'ramucirumab', 'trametinib', 'vandetanib', and 'vemurafenib' for intervention factors; 'non-small cell lung cancer' for an outcome factor; and 'clinical trial' and 'randomized controlled trial' for type of study. The bibliographies of relevant articles were also reviewed to identify additional studies related to this topic. The literature search was restricted to studies published in English.
