Molecular determinants of lung cancer

Abstract

Lung cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm and the main cause of human death. Despite persistant development in the dignostics and therapy process, 5-year survival is still unsatisfactory. It is caused mostly by detecting lung cancer in advanced stage and that is why there is no posibility for radical treatment resection. Diagnostic and therapeutical progress in molecular biology creates a chance to make overall survival longer. In this paper authors present molecular determinants of lung cancer including main functions of p53, Rb, p16. MYC, RAS proteins and consequences of mutations within the genes encoding them. There is also showed a role of growth factors, apoptosis, angiogenesis and telomerase in the oncogenic transformation. Beside this authors descibed genetics dycfunctions which may be a molecular predictive factos for lung cancer.