Personalized Therapy in Lung Cancer: Focused on Molecular Targeted Therapy

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, with an overall 5 year survival rate of 15%. Most patients present with advanced disease that requires systemic chemotherapy, which merely confers several months of survival benefit. Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying lung cancer have led to molecular targeted therapy in this field. Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are the first successful personalized therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with about 30 months of median overall survival in patients with sensitive EGFR mutations. In addition, monoclonal antibodies against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or EGFR are also in current clinical use. Resistance to EGFR-TKIs has emerged as a major limitation of these agents and become challenge clinically. A number of novel targeted agents have been developed and investigated in clinical trials to overcome the limitation of agents currently available. Recently, echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4-anaplastic lymphoma kinase fusion gene ( EML4-ALK), as a novel molecular target of NSCLC, has been identified, and its inhibitor is under rapid clinical development. We herein review the molecular targeted therapies currently available for NSCLC and discuss the clinical data of novel agents under clinical development. (J Lung Cancer 2011;10(1):1 �� 12)