Targeted Therapies Development in the Treatment of Advanced Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer

摘要

Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is diagnosed in the majority of patients in advanced stage of disease. In this setting, the prognosis is very poor with median survival of 9-12 months and palliative chemotherapy being the standard of care. However, chemotherapy in advanced disease seems to have reached a plateau with no doublet combination shown to be clinically superior to the others. Advances in the knowledge of tumor biology and mechanisms of oncogenesis has granted the singling out of several molecular targets for NSCLC treatment. Targeted therapies are designed to interfere with specific aberrant biologic pathways involved in tumorigenesis. A large amount of preclinical in vivo and in vitro data have been gathered on the antitumor properties of a number of new biological agents, both as single agents and combined with other conventional treatment modalities such as chemotherapy. Several targeted therapies have been introduced in cancer treatment, and in particular gefitinib and erlotinib—two epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKI) and bevacizumab (an antiangiogen agent) have been introduced in advanced NSCLC, and others are in current clinical development.