Targeted lung cancer therapies

摘要

Accounting for the largest number of cancer-related deaths, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will afflict an estimated 170,000 individuals in the United States this year (FIG l). Five-year survival rates are a dismally low 15%, with an 8-9 month predicted median survival for front-line stage IIIB/IV patients1. Since the mid-1990s, various chemotherapeutic modalities have served as treatments for this disease and, owing to their indiscriminate mechanisms of action, are almost always associated with high degrees of toxicity. Answering this challenge have come targeted cancer therapies - tumour-selective agents relatively benign to normal tissue with tolerability profiles far superior to conventional cytotoxic agents.