Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1196: Oncogene-Addicted Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Treatment Opportunities and Future Perspectives

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1196: Oncogene-Addicted Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Treatment Opportunities and Future Perspectives Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers12051196 Authors: Miriam Grazia Ferrara Vincenzo Di Noia Ettore D’Argento Emanuele Vita Paola Damiano Antonella Cannella Marta Ribelli Sara Pilotto Michele Milella Giampaolo Tortora Emilio Bria Before the introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for a particular subgroup of patients, despite platinum-based combination chemotherapy, the majority of patients affected by non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) did not live longer than one year. With deeper understanding of tumor molecular biology, treatment of NSCLC has progressively entered the era of treatment customization according to tumor molecular characteristics, as well as histology. All this information allowed the development of personalized molecular targeted therapies. A series of studies have shown that, in some cases, cancer cells can grow and survive as result of the presence of a single driver genomic abnormality. This phenomenon, called oncogene-addiction, more often occurs in adenocarcinoma histology, in non-smokers (except BRAF mutations, also frequent in smoking patients), young, and female patients. Several different driver mutations have been identified and many studies have clearly shown that upfront TKI monotherapy may improve the overall outcome of these patients. The greater efficacy of these drugs is also associated wi...
Source: Cancers - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research