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Science 304 (5676): 1458-1461

Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

CANCER:
A Bull's Eye for Targeted Lung Cancer Therapy

John D. Minna, Adi F. Gazdar, Stephen R. Sprang, Joachim Herz

The tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib has had mixed results in the treatment of lung cancer. The reason is now revealed in two papers published here (Paez et al.) and elsewhere, which receive in-depth discussion in a Perspective by Minna et al. The two new studies show that tumors from a subset of lung cancer patients with an efficacious response to gefitinib carry mutations in the kinase domain of the EGF receptor. The new findings should enable early selection of those lung cancer patients most likely to respond well to gefitinib.

J. D. Minna is in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology and A. F. Gazdar is in the Department of Pathology, Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA. S. R. Sprang is in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biochemistry, and J. Herz is in the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA. E-mail: john.minna{at}utsouthwestern.edu

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