Dr. Yang Discusses the Future of Lung Cancer Treatment

James CH Yang, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Deputy Director, Department of Medical Oncology, National Taiwan University Hospital, Director, Cancer Research, Center National Taiwan University College of Medicine, discusses the future of lung cancer treatment.

Yang says molecular diagnostics will be the most important area in the treatment of lung cancer going forward. Patients with metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer should be molecularly categorized before treatment. Once categorized, they should received drugs that fit their molecular characteristics. This personalization, Yang says, is already occurring in patients with EGFR mutations and ALK fusions. There are, however, some mutations of which good targeted agents do not yet exist.

Yang says in the future, patients whose tumors become resistant to targeted therapies will need to be re-biopsied to deterring the resistance mechanism. There is also a need for biomarkers to detect resistance and studies to confirm improved outcomes.