History of small-cell lung cancer

Abstract

The history of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is one of the more fascinating stories of medicine, a story of hope and disappointment that characterizes it as 1 of the most elusive cancers. Its history can be divided into 3 intervals. The first interval encompassed the 30 years after the initial reports from Bernard in 1926 during which SCLC was characterized. The second interval, from the 1960s-1980s, introduced advances in staging and treatment of SCLC and the advent of chemotherapy and radiation therapy (RT) as the primary forms of therapy. The final interval covers the past 25 years, which is considered a dormant period, although there are some shimmers of hope from the emergence of several new active drugs that are currently undergoing clinical trials.