For early stage lung cancer, surgery is still the first lineup; for advanced lung cancer with genetic mutations, the efficiency of treatment with targeted drugs can reach 70%~80% 10 years ago, if someone unfortunately had advanced lung cancer, surgery and radiotherapy and other means were no longer able to control the disease, it was really hard for doctors to do anything more than regretfully comforting them. Yet today, as targeted lung cancer drugs enter China, more than 200,000 Chinese patients are telling the world through their examples that targeted therapy has not only been in the past, but will continue to rewrite their destiny in the future. In the time that targeted lung cancer drugs have been in China, the median survival of patients with advanced lung cancer has increased by 2.4 times, and the five-year survival rate has grown from 8% to 18%. In addition, the expansion of medical insurance policy coverage and the inclusion of charitable drug grant programs have largely reduced the burden of medication for Chinese patients, benefiting more people. Generally, patients with advanced lung cancer have a survival period of one or two years at most, but it is now not uncommon for patients to live beyond three, five or even longer years. Genes with mutations Treatment efficiency can reach 70%-80% So, are targeted drugs effective for every advanced lung cancer patient? In fact, targeted drugs are called targeted because they must have a very clear target to attack, that is, “there is a target to hit”. Therefore, before starting targeted drug therapy, it is a critical step to clarify the existence of the “target” in the patient’s body. As research progresses, a gene mutation called EGFR has been discovered to be the “target” of targeted therapy for non-small cell lung cancer. As a result, there is a strong emphasis on genetic testing to identify the presence of the “EGFR gene mutation” in patients before using targeted lung cancer drugs. ”Selective use of targeted therapy drugs can increase the hit rate.” From clinical studies, if patients with EGFR gene mutations are detected, the efficiency of treatment with targeted drugs can reach 70% to 80%, said Dicky Yang. For this reason, both the National Health Planning Commission and the lung cancer academia have been vigorously promoting lung cancer genetic testing in recent years. in 2014, more than 100 hospitals in China have established EGFR gene mutation in-hospital testing platforms, which provide for individualized lung cancer treatment and clinical research. Meanwhile, blood testing can also be used as a complementary means of EGFR testing. However, a study in eight cities, including North, Shanghai and Guangzhou, found that the rate of EGFR gene testing for lung cancer is 51%, and nationwide, the rate is only 27%, which is far from the rate of over 80% in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. At present, more lung cancer driver genes are being researched by the medical community, and many new targeted therapeutic drugs are being developed. It is believed that in the near future, lung cancer patients will have more choices on the road of targeted therapy. With targeted drugs, does it mean that traditional surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy can be abandoned? Of course not. For early stage lung cancer patients, surgery is still the first choice. The key to lung cancer treatment is the three principles of “staging, standardized treatment and individualization”. In terms of staging treatment, lung cancer is currently divided into stages I, II, III and IV, among which stages I to III are further divided into three subtypes – IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA and IIIB. late stage means.” Staging determines the patient’s treatment outcome. In the case of stage IA lung cancer, the five-year survival rate after standard treatment can reach 70% to 80%. In contrast, the five-year survival rate for patients with stage IV lung cancer is less than 1 percent without treatment, and the natural survival time without treatment is 9.6 months. ”Therefore, staging determines the difficulty of treatment and different treatment expectations for patients. for stage IV lung cancer, the aim of treatment is to improve the quality of life and delay patient survival. stage I treatment aims at radical treatment to improve patient survival time and make patients live longer.” So in staged treatment, surgery is the main treatment until stage IIIA, and non-surgical treatment, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapy, is the main treatment from stage IIIB to stage IV. ”For example, stage IA and IB patients do not need any further treatment after surgery, stage IIA to IIIA patients can do chemotherapy after surgery, while stage IIIB and IV patients have no meaningful surgery and mainly do radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy.”