J Korean Med Assoc.  2003 Jan;46(1):46-50. 10.5124/jkma.2003.46.1.46.

Molecular Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine & Hospital, Seoul National University, Korea. heo1013@plaza.ac.kr

Abstract

Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer deaths in Korea. In spite of some improvements, conventional treatments (surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy) did not bring satisfactory solution of this fatal disease. Recent progress in molecular biology gave us better understanding of pathophysiology of lung cancer. It showed the basic elements of carcinogenesis at the molecular level. New anticancer drugs against molecular targets of cancer cells demonstrated treatment efficacy with acceptable toxicity. As STI-571 (Gleevec) is effective in chronic myelogenous leukemia, inhibitors of epidermal growth factor receptor (Iressa and Cetuximab) showed promising results in non-small cell lung cancer. Numerous new drugs against various molecular targets, such as oncogenes or extra-cellular matrix or angiogenesis or COX-2, are under investigation. Despite numerous obstacles to overcome, there are high hopes that these kinds of molecular targeted therapy will open a new horizon in lung cancer treatment.

Keyword

Lung cancer, Molecular target; Gene therapy; Iressa

MeSH Terms

Carcinogenesis
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung
Genetic Therapy
Hope
Imatinib Mesylate
Korea
Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive
Lung Neoplasms*
Lung*
Molecular Biology
Molecular Targeted Therapy*
Oncogenes
Radiotherapy
Receptor, Epidermal Growth Factor
Treatment Outcome
Receptor, Epidermal Growth Factor

Figure

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Reference

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