2021. 03. 04
There are inseparable words, EGFR and Non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC). Lung cancer is largely divided into two categories that are treated very differently and NSCLC is one of them.
Then, what is the connection between EGFR and Lung cancer?
The main causes of NSCLC are adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Up to 60% of lung adenocarcinoma and up to 50-80% of SCC have a known oncogenic driver mutation. The best studied in NSCLC is the interaction between EGFR and its downstream pathways. Also, there are a lot of researches going on between EGFR and targeted therapy. Therefore, EGFR plays a very important role in lung cancer.
As you can see in Fig 2, cancer is globally the second leading cause of death globally, and approximately 9.6 million died from cancer in 2018. In other words, about 1 in 6 deaths is due to cancer. Among all different kinds of cancer, the most common cancer in 2018 is lung cancer (2.09 million cases), and the most common cause of death is also lung cancer (1.76 million deaths)
According to research from the American Cancer Society, from 1900 till today lung and bronchus take the biggest portion of trends in death rate. The death rate is slowly decreasing year by year, but still, they have the largest part.
Asian takes the most portion in incidence, mortality, and 5-year prevalence. More than half of lung cancer patients are Asian. This also means that the most crucial cancer in Asia is lung cancer. Clearly, lung cancer takes a big portion in the incidence and death of cancer and This is the reason why lots of researches are going on around the world. GENECAST is one of them and tries to resolve cancer problems through early detection.
[References]
1)Fig1: Targeted therapy for non-small cell lung cancer: current standards and the promise of the future, Bryan A. Chan, Brett G.M. Hughes Vol 4, No 1 (February 2015) Translational Lung Cancer Research
2)Fig2,3: WHO Lung cancer Fact sheet