Future developments in the treatment of lung cancer

Lung cancer is the most frequent cause of cancer deaths in the western world. Despite some improvements in treatment results, especially by the use of combined treatment modalities, the overall prognosis is still very poor, and less than 15% of the patients survive 5-year after primary diagnosis. Through rapid developments in biotechnology and increased knowledge about important signaling pathways leading to cell proliferation, apoptosis, angiogenesis and metastases, new treatment possibilities with specific targeted therapies have emerged for chemoprevention and treatment of lung cancer. Together with developments of new technology available for early diagnosis new paradigms for management of lung cancer are under development with great promises for improvement of the overall prognosis.