Ongoing and future trials of biologic therapies in lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading world-wide cause of cancer death. The care rate remains less than 15% despite improvements in surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The majority of deaths can be attributed to systemic metastases. Chemotherapy prolongs survival but produces few complete responses and survival at 5-years is rare. Molecular advances have provided many new targets for lung cancer therapy. Many new agents have been developed to attack these targets. This article describes current and proposed trials for these new targeted therapies in both small cell and non-small cell lung cancers. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd and American Society of Clinical Oncology. Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.