Significance of Molecular Genotyping for Lung Cancer in Modern Oncology.
Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent life-threatening diseases and remains the
leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Although surgical resection of the tumor is
considered as one of the most effective treatments, most lung cancer patients present with
locally advanced or metastatic disease at the time of the diagnosis and are not candidates for surgical treatment.
For these patients palliative chemotherapy and radiation therapy, alone or in combination, become the main treatment of choice. The prognosis for lung cancer in general is poor and an overall 5-year survival rate for all stages of
lung cancer, regardless of subtypes, is about 18%,which has not been significantly improved in the past several decades.
For those in an advanced stage of the disease the prognosis is even worse. About half of all lung cancer patients have metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. There is no doubt that the conventional treatment of lung cancer would not significantly change the outcome for lung cancer patients.
In order to conquer the deadly disease, it is important to understand the pathogenesis of lung cancer that involves alteration and accumulation of molecular abnormalities over time. The abnormalities can occur in different levels including DNA sequence, gene transcripts, protein expression and cell signaling involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and angiogenesis.
These changes are related to alterations in normal genes due to gene mutations, gene silencing, and gene amplification or deletion. Most of cancers are likely to be caused by or related to these driving genes that function as oncogene and make cancer cell develop and grow.
Pulm Res Respir Med Open J. 2015; 2(3): 120-121. doi: 10.17140/PRRMOJ-2-119
