Clinical Utility of Tumor Markers in the Management of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a leading cause of cancer-related death for men and women worldwide, exhibits a highly variable clinical course. Death may occur within a few weeks of diagnosis at one extreme, whereas other cases have apparently benign outcomes for periods of up to 20 years with no treatment (1 ). The current tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system for NSCLC, which is based primarily on imaging studies and which serves as the principal guide for therapy, has significant limitations. For example, five-yr survival after “curative” resection for apparently localized, stage I NSCLC is only 46%, with death usually owing to recurrent or metastatic cancer (2 ). The reasons for this variability in clinical outcomes are largely unknown.