The role of multidisciplinary team and molecular tumor board in the treatment of a patient with lung cancer

Abstract

Nowadays, selection of appropriate therapy in patients with lung cancer is based on comprehensive molecular characteristics of their tumors. On molecular level, lung cancer is one of the best described solid tumors. Currently, there are already methods in routine clinical practice that enable a relatively quick, accurate and cost-effective analysis of dozens of genes and thus make it possible to determine a complex molecular characteristic of a tumor. This creates new possibilities to tailor the treatment to the patients to achieve long-term survival with a good quality of life. New technologies bring more and more information and to transform it into the best clinical benefit for the patient can be challenging. This is a place for the multidisciplinary approach in the form of a molecular tumor board. Its role is to try to indicate appropriate therapy based on the identified genetic alteration. Today, dozens of targeted drugs are available and new treatment options are emerging even for genetic alterations, which until now seemed to be undruggable.

Keywords: comprehensive molecular profiling; lung cancer; molecular tumor board; precision oncology; targeted therapy.