Unraveling the prevalence of various signalling pathways in non-small-cell lung cancer: a review.

Cancer has become a huge public health issue all around the world. The focus of research is on innovative cancer therapy techniques that include the disease's unique targets. Among the cancer-related deaths that occur, lung cancer is considered to be one of the major, accounting for about 1.6 million fatalities globally in 2012, or nearly 20% of all cancer deaths. Non-small-cell lung cancer, a type of lung cancer comprises upto 84% of lung cancer cases, demonstrating the need for a more effective treatment. A novel category of cancer management, known as targeted cancer medicines, has risen to prominence in recent years. Targeted cancer treatments, like traditional chemotherapy, employ pharmacological drugs to slow cancer development, enhance cell death, and prevent it from spreading. Targeted treatments, as the name implies, work by interfering with particular proteins implicated in cancer. Numerous research conducted in the last several decades have led to the conclusion that signalling pathways are involved in the growth of lung cancer. All malignant tumours are produced, spread, invade, and behave in various abnormal ways due to abnormal pathways. Numerous significant signalling pathways, including the RTK/RAS/MAP-Kinase pathway (hence often referred to as RTK-RAS for simplicity), PI3K/Akt signalling, and others, have been discovered as commonly genetically changed. The current developments in research on various signalling pathways, as well as the underlying mechanisms of the molecules implicated in these pathways, are innovatively summarised in this review. To give a good sense of the study that has been done so far, many routes are placed together. Thus, this review includes the detailed description regarding each pathways, the mutations formed, and the present treatment strategy to overcome the resistance.

A pharmacological exploration of targeted drug therapy in non-small cell lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the prime cause of cancer-related deaths globally, with a contribution of 85% from non-small cell lung cancer. Before a few decades back, conventional chemotherapy was the most chosen treatment option for NSCLC but with side effects. Now, the treatment approaches have shifted to a new trend, targeted therapy, and a better treatment strategy with minimal side effects compared to chemotherapy. Advances in technologies and understanding the pathways lead to the discovery of new targets and through which it is possible to improve treatment outcomes and patient compliance. Unlike chemotherapy, targeted therapy focuses on the tumor cells and does not produce toxicity to healthy cells. The last two decades were very crucial in the development of many small molecules with the capability to target-specific proteins or genes in the disease progression pathway. Although the targeted therapy approach was a gemstone with many successful drugs for the treatment of NSCLC, various resistance mechanisms and activation of bypass signaling pathways put many of these drugs in the trash. In this review, we will discuss the major targeted proteins involved in NSCLC as well as the inhibitor drugs developed to target them for now and along with the future directions.