May 2024 marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of papers on the role of EGFR mutation in lung cancer. This is a seminal event that changed the history of this disease and that can be traced back to one reason why cancer mortality has been declining in the United States.
The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project explore this development in a comprehensive multimedia series consisting of opinion pieces, our real-time coverage, historical documents, and interviews with scientists, clinicians, drug regulators, and cancer survivors.
This multimedia series is guest-edited by Suresh S. Ramalingam, a lung cancer expert, executive director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, and editor-in-chief of the journal Cancer.
This is the third story in a series that will explore the process of discovery of EGFR mutations in lung cancer, the learning curve for using the drugs that target those mutations, and the unparalleled impact on patients with lung cancer and other diseases.
Twenty years ago, the discovery of epidermal growth factor receptor mutations as drivers of tumorigenesis and viable targets for therapeutic intervention marked the beginning of a new era in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. Since then, the field has made remarkable progress towards developing more effective targeted treatments and immunotherapies that have significantly improved patient outcomes and survival.
