RESUMO
Lung cancer is the highest incidence of malignant tumor in the world, and is the leading cause of cancer death; 80%-85% of lung cancer is non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the positive rate of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion gene in NSCLC patients is about 3%-7%. In recent years, targeted therapeutic drugs for ALK fusion gene have developed rapidly. The clinical use of ALK inhibitors such as clozotinib, aletinib and loratinib has significantly improved the survival of patients with ALK positive advanced NSCLC. However, the effect of ALK fusion gene positive on the prognosis of early NSCLC patients is not clear, and whether it can benefit from ALK inhibitor treatment is still unknown. The action mechanism of ALK fusion gene, the clinicopathologic features, the method of detection, the effect of ALK fusion gene positive on the prognosis of NSCLC patients and the recent progress of the ALK inhibitor are briefly described in present paper with a view to having a certain reference to the clinical work.