Preface on Lung Cancer Management—The Next Decade

The management of lung cancer has evolved very rapidly in the past decade. The introduction of targeted and immunotherapies have significantly improved outcomes especially in advanced stage disease (1), endobronchial technology to improve early diagnostic yields (2), robotic surgery to perform challenging surgery in more precise manner (3), and liquid biopsies to diagnose and guide treatments. However, these past great leaps in lung cancer management, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, “… is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

In this special series of “Lung Cancer Management—The Next Decade”, we have invited some of the top clinician scientists in the field, many of them pioneers and trailblazers in their topics, to provide us with their unique perspectives. The articles cover the latest developments in: (I) the use of circulating tumour DNA and the potentials it holds [Lam et al. (4)]; (II) the current and future technologies of using robotic bronchoscopy [Ho et al. (5)] and cone beam computed tomography (CT) scan for accurate tissue biopsy acquisition [Verhoeven et al. (6)]; (III) the state of the art in non-invasive and minimally invasive surgical approaches to treat lung cancer by transbronchial ablation therapies [Chan et al. (7)] and uniportal robotic surgery [Gonzalez-Rivas et al. (8)]; (IV) the current use of targeted therapy with preview to how it might change in the next decade [Li et al. (9)]; and (V) other technologies such as artificial intelligence [Bardoni et al. (10)] and 3D printing [Aravena et al. (11)] that could revolutionize how lung cancer is managed. We hope you will enjoy reading this special series, where leading clinician scientists dare to push the boundaries and dream of what might become standard care in their own sub-specialty or area of research interest in the next golden decade.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Annals of Translational Medicine, for the series “Lung Cancer Management—The Next Decade”. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: The author has completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://atm.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/atm-2024-01/coif). The series “Lung Cancer Management—The Next Decade” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. C.S.H.N. served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Translational Medicine from January 2022 to December 2025. He receives consulting fees from Medtronic Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. The author has no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

References

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4. Lam WKJ, Bai J, Ma MJL, et al. Circulating tumour DNA analysis for early detection of lung cancer: a systematic review. Ann Transl Med 2024; Epub ahead of print. [Crossref]
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8. Gonzalez-Rivas D, Manolache V, Bosinceanu ML, et al. Uniportal pure robotic-assisted thoracic surgery—technical aspects, tips and tricks. Ann Transl Med 2023;11:362. [Crossref] [PubMed]
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10. Bardoni C, Spaggiari L, Bertolaccini L. Artificial Intelligence in Lung Cancer. Ann Transl Med 2024; Epub ahead of print. [Crossref]
11. Aravena C, Gildea TR. Patient-specific airway stent using three-dimensional printing: a review. Ann Transl Med 2023;11:360. [Crossref] [PubMed]

Calvin S. H. Ng