ISSN: 1837-9664Journal of Cancer
Global reach, higher impact
J Cancer 2017; 8(1):29-38. doi:10.7150/jca.16822 This issue Cite
Research Paper
Research progress in the treatment of small cell lung cancer
Key Laboratory of Translational Radiation Oncology, Hunan Province. Department of Radiation Oncology, Hunan Cancer Hospital and The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for approximately 10-15% of all lung cancers. No significant improvement has been made for patients with SCLC in the past several decades. The main progresses were the thoracic radiation and prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) that improved the patient survival rate. For patients with limited disease and good performance status (PS), concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) followed by PCI should be considered. For extensive disease, the combination of etoposide and platinum-based chemotherapy remains the standard treatment and consolidative thoracic radiotherapy is beneficial for patients who have a significant respond to initial chemotherapy. However, the prognosis still remains poor. Recently, efforts have been focused on molecular targets and immunotherapy. But numerous molecular targets methods have failed to show a significant clinical benefit in patients with SCLC. It is anticipated that further development of research will depend on the on-going trials for molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy which are promising and may improve the outcomes for SCLC in the next decade.
Keywords: Immunotherapy, Molecular targets, Prophylactic cranial irradiation, Radiotherapy, Small cell lung cancer.
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