A new era for bronchioloalveolar carcinoma: current state of the art and recent advances in biologically targeted therapy

Abstract

Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is a fascinating and unusual variant of nonsmall-cell lung cancer that has a tendency towards an indolent course and to metastasize to the lung rather than distant organs. Chemotherapy has shown activity in advanced bronchioloalveolar carcinoma but response rates remain low. Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors have shown impressive activity against bronchioloalveolar carcinoma in trials. New data suggest that epidermal growth factor receptor mutations and gene copy number may predict subsets of patients who could most benefit from these novel agents. These new findings may point the way to a new era in which we can predict which patients will respond to epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors and thus allow us to tailor therapy to the individual patient.