Advances in clinical trials of targeted therapy and immunotherapy of lung cancer in 2018

Among the new cases of malignant tumors and tumor deaths worldwide in 2018, the incidence (11.6%) and mortality (18.4%) of lung cancer ranked first (1). In China, the incidence and mortality of lung cancer has gradually increased over the past 30 years, and this trend is expected to continue (2). The malignant tumor incidence and mortality study in China in 2015 showed that the incidence and mortality of lung cancer were the highest of any cancers (3). Lung cancer has become one of the problems that threatens human health worldwide. But at the same time, there were many clinical trials that made significant progress in the treatment of lung cancer in 2018. Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) inhibitors, programmed cell death ligand protein-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors, and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) inhibitors showed good results, both in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). For inoperable patients with gene mutations, targeted therapy has shown superior efficacy compared to traditional chemotherapy. Targeted therapy and immunotherapy may therefore become the first-line treatments for inoperable NSCLC and SCLC