Abstract
Targeted therapies for cancer bring the hope of specific treatment, providing high efficacy and in some cases lower toxicity than conventional treatment. Although targeted therapeutics have helped immensely in the treatment of several cancers, like chronic myelogenous leukemia, colon cancer, and breast cancer, the benefit of these agents in the treatment of lung cancer remains limited, in part due to the development of drug resistance. In this review, we discuss the mechanisms of drug resistance and the current strategies used to treat lung cancer. A better understanding of these drug-resistance mechanisms could potentially benefit from the development of a more robust personalized medicine approach for the treatment of lung cancer.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by a merit award from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and National Institute of Health grants R01CA1385282522717 and 5R21CA153268-02 to Robert A Winn.
Disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.