State of the art in the treatment of lung cancer

Abstract

Lung cancer is the major cancer killer in both sexes. Despite many biological and technological achievements, it is still mostly an incurable disease, and survival figures are only modestly improved in the past few decades. Optimisation of treatment is usually sought through clinical studies, but unfortunately only a few per cent of lung cancer patients enter these world-wide. So it is in spite of the fact that we have witnessed the introduction of robotic surgery, computerised radiation therapy and targeted agents in daily clinical practice. More emphasis on clinical research is therefore needed to improve our capability to successfully treat lung cancer.