MODERN OPPORTUNITIES OF TARGETED THERAPY FOR NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER

Abstract

Oncological diseases – the scourge of modern society. According to the Cancer Research UK data, in 2012 years cancer diagnosis was established for 14.1 million adults (13 percent of them - lung cancer); 8.2 million people died in the same year due to these diseases (19 percent of them - from lung cancer). One of the most common oncological diseases worldwide is lung cancer which is "improving" its morbidity and mortality rates every year. According to statistics data, about 81 men and 10 women out of 100 000 inhabitants had lung cancer in Lithuania in 2008. The main cause of lung cancer is smoking. It is not surprising that lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies in Lithuanian men as well as in other world countries [1,2]. Smoking worldwide becomes a normal social interaction standard, therefore recently lung cancer is rising among women. Lung cancer prognosis is poor – 5-year survival rate in Lithuania reaches just 9 percent, in Europe – 10 percent, in the world – 15 percent [3]. Standart treatment of advanced non-small lung cancer is chemotherapy. As researchers have learned more about the changes in lung cancer cells that help them grow, they have developed newer drugs that specifically target these changes. These targeted drugs work differently from standard chemotherapy(chemo) drugs. New aspects of the molecular and genetic pathogenesis of the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) looks promising and it opened the way for targeted therapy and individualized lung cancer treatment.