title: Improving lung cancer survival; time to move on.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  During the past decades, numerous efforts have been made to decrease the death rate among lung cancer patients. Nonetheless, the improvement in long-term survival has been limited and lung cancer is still a devastating disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With this article we would like to point out that survival of lung cancer could be strongly improved by controlling two pivotal prognostic factors: stage and treatment. This is corresponding with recent reports that show a decrease in lung cancer mortality by screening programs. In addition, modulation of the patient's immune system by immunotherapy either as monotherapy or combined with conventional cancer treatments offers the prospect of tailoring treatments much more precisely and has also been shown to lead to a better response to treatment and overall survival of non-small cell lung cancer patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Since only small improvements in survival can be expected in advanced disease with the use of conventional therapies, more research should be focused on lung cancer screening programs and patient tailored immunotherapy with or without conventional therapies. If these approaches are clinically combined in a standard multidisciplinary policy we might be able to advance the survival of patients with lung cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Diseases and Tuberculosis, Erasmus Medical University Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. m.heuvers@erasmusmc.nl
authors.forename: Marlies E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Heuvers
authors.forename: Joost P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Hegmans
authors.forename: Bruno H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Stricker
authors.forename: Joachim G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Aerts
mesh_terms: D004358:Drug Therapy; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate