Lung Cancer Therapeutics Landscape, A Current Overview

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death across the world, both among men and women. According to the CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, every year, about 200,000 people are diagnosed and about 150,000 people die because of lung cancer. Lung cancer begins in the lungs, a pair of respiratory organs in the thoracic cavity. Majority of the lung cancers are carcinogenic in nature, which means the uncontrolled tumor cell growth causes malignant tumor cells, eventually spread out from the lungs to the nearby lymph nodes and possibly to other organs, for example, the brain. Two major types of lung cancers are small cell and non-small cell lung cancers. Non-small cell lung cancer constitutes 80 to 90% of all lung cancers and can further be subdivided into adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. These different types of lung cancers develop differently, grow differently, and are treated differently. Cigarette smoking has been attributed to the number one cause of lung cancer across the world and links to almost 80 to 90% of all lung cancers. Historically, lung cancers have been treated, using conventional therapies which include resection surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapies. Recent advancement in science lead to targeted therapies for lung cancer, which includes ALK inhibitors, EGFR inhibitors, VEGF inhibitors, and immunotherapies. This review delves into the recent advancement in the lung cancer therapeutic landscape and discusses recent treatment strategies and options available to the patients. This review also discusses new therapies in the pipeline for lung cancers including allogeneic vaccines. Peptide or protein vaccines, autologous dendritic cell vaccines, DNA vaccines, vector-based vaccines, CAR-T therapies, and Heme-sequestering proteins, which are used to target cancer cells.