Non small cell lung cancer overview

15.11.2010

Non-small cell lung cancer is currently the single biggest killer from cancer of any disease in the world. It's called non-small cell lung cancer to distinguish it from another rarer type of lung cancer called small cell, which behaves very differently and is treated very differently.

One of the key things about lung cancer that has evolved over the last 5 years, is the recognition that it is not one disease, it's multiple, different diseases down at the molecular level. This means that for some people, if you can find exactly what is driving their cancer and you can block it, like a key in a lock, you can turn their cancer off. Now that may not be a cure, but you can get much better control, for much longer, with much less in the way of side-effects, and that's where targeted therapy comes in. Not just the promise of one miracle drug for everybody but finding the exact right drug for certain groups of somebodies.