The biology of lung cancer including potential clinical applications

The understanding of lung cancer pathogenesis is rapidly growing and needs to be translated into clinical practice. Molecular screening approaches will be combined with CT scans to detect premalignant lesions and early-stage cancers in high-risk groups for lung cancer and to monitor the efficacy of chemoprevention trials. New treatment approaches, such as gene therapy, monoclonal antibodies against growth factors and receptors, angiogenesis inhibitors, vaccines, apoptosis modulators, and new drugs targeted at these abnormal pathways, will be tested and, if effective, included in future multimodality treatment strategies of lung cancer. All these approaches will hopefully lead to earlier diagnosis and more efficient treatment of lung cancer, resulting in a better prognosis of this still mostly lethal disease.