Lung cancer, the most common and deadliest malignancy worldwide, is one of the biggest challenges for modern oncology. Although lung cancer presents the same incidence as breast or colorectal cancer, it causes as much deaths as breast and colorectal cancers together. Lung cancer demands our abilities as researchers, physicians, and care-givers in a multidisciplinary approach. Genetic, biology, pharmacy, pneumology, internal medicine, radiology, pathology, thoracic surgery, radiation, medical oncology and palliative care departments are essential members of the thoracic tumor boards. Fighting Lung Cancer through Conventional Therapies is the second volume of a saga entirely devoted to the treatment of lung cancer. In the age of targeted oncology, more than 90% of lung cancer patients are managed with conventional surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy only. Furthermore, 100% of them will need conventional treatments during the course of the disease. This volume updates indications, techniques, and applications of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy in the treatment of lung cancer by an international team of experts. Included within these pages are: epidemiology and pathology; baseline and mediastinal staging; minimally invasive surgery, video-assisted thoracic surgery, and standard surgery in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer; radiation therapy for early non-small cell lung cancer; the management of locally advanced non-small cell cancer; applications of surgery to metastatic lung cancer; the new role of radiotherapy in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer; conventional chemotherapy as well as experimental treatments and combos with targeted therapies; the treatment of early and advanced small cell lung cancer; the role of palliative supportive care; and the integration of all those disciplines in multidisciplinary tumor boards are exhaustively reviewed.

Lung cancer is the most common and most lethal malignancy world-wide, causing 1.4 million diseases every year. Half of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) are diagnosed at such an advanced stage that a cure cannot be considered a realistic aim, and over 75% of cases selected for a curative treatment eventually relapse within five years. The 5-year overall survival rates are less than 20% for NSCLC patients. As a disease, NSCLC demands our maximum abilities as researchers, physicians, and care-givers, and a continuous updating of our knowledge. Conventional chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC does not provide a great long-term benefit in terms of survival. Accordingly, a different therapeutic approach has to be explored. The human epidermal growth factor family of surface receptors (HER) became a critical target to be investigated. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is over-expressed in over 80% of non-small cell lung cancer. The presence of sensitising conformational mutations in the EGFR increases the efficacy of modern tyrosine kinase inhibitors against its inner portion (EGFR-TKI). The EGFR-TKIs greatly prolong disease-free survival of those patients harbouring sensitising EGFR mutations, and have been suggested as an essential tool in the therapeutic repertoire. This volume aims to serve as an updated compendium of biology and applications of anti-EGFR therapies, and offers a look at the future of anti-HER therapy in lung cancer. This volume exhaustively reviews and discusses: 1) the nature and significance of activating EGFR mutations, and those clinical and pathological phenomena related to HER alterations; 2) the most common laboratory methodologies to study EGFR, and the future of HER analysis; 3) the right time to analyse EGFR mutations and evolutionary changes in the HER; 4) EGFR-TKI application in unselected and selected NSCLC patients; 5) upcoming anti-HER therapies; 6) the eventual role of anti-HER therapies in early NSCLC; 7) mechanisms of acquired resistance to anti-HER therapies, and experimental and conventional strategies to bypass them; 8) the application of anti-HER therapies in other malignancies. This book is an indispensable handbook for all those specialists devoted to the diagnosis and management of lung cancer.