The Importance of Identifying Molecular Markers in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer To understand the importance of molecular markers in the current and future treatment of lung cancer, one should first understand how lung cancer was classified up until the beginning of this decade. Pathologists would look at a sample of a patient's lung tumor under a microscope, and then make a judgment of whether the cells represented small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The following is the edited transcript and figures from a webinar presentation made by Dr. Heather Wakelee, medical oncologist and Associate Professor at Stanford Cancer Center, on Never-Smokers and Gender Differences in Lung Cancer.

Probably the leading story in lung cancer at ASCO this year was about ALK inhibitor therapy and the Pfizer drug crizotinib (PF-02341066). Though

I thought I'd just take a moment to talk about what I'm finding with regard to ALK rearrangements in patients with NSCLC (see here for review). I hope and expect that there will be more to learn at the ASCO conference in early June, either in the setting of official presentations on the subject or through informal discussions with my colleagues who are also involved with this work.