Targeted therapies in non-small cell lung cancer and the potential role of AI interventions in cancer treatment.

Abstract

Non-small cell lung cancer is the most prevalent lung cancer, and almost three-fourths of patients are diagnosed in the advanced stage directly. In this stage, chemotherapy gives only a 15% 5-year survival rate. As people have varied symptoms and reactions to a specific cancer type, treatment for the tumor is likely to fall short, complicating cancer therapy. Immunotherapy is a breakthrough treatment involving drugs targeting novel immune checkpoint inhibitors like CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1, along with combination therapies. In addition, the utility of engineered CAR-T and CAR-NK cells can be an effective strategy to promote the immune response against tumors. The concept of personalized cancer vaccines with the discovery of neoantigens loaded on dendritic cell vectors can also be an effective approach to cure cancer. Advances in genetic engineering tools like CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing of T cells to enhance their effector function is another ray of hope. This review aims to provide an overview of recent developments in cancer immunotherapy, which can be used in first- and second-line treatments in the clinical space. Further, the intervention of artificial intelligence to detect cancer tumors at an initial stage with the help of machine learning techniques is also explored.