Review: Pulmonary Carcinoma Associating with EML4-ALK - Abstract
Conventionally, it has been believed that oncogenesis accompanying chromosomal translocations such as BCR-Abl in CML is limited to particular tumors such as hematologic diseases, etc. However, the presence of the EML4-ALK fusion gene in lung cancer induced by chromosomal translocations in chromosome 2q was reported in 2007. This is present in approximately 5% of pulmonary adenocarcinomas in which ALK inhibitor, crizotinib, is greatly responsive with respect to EML4-ALK lung cancer. Crizotinib was approved by the FDA in 2012 at an unprecedented speed. A summary of EML4-ALK lung cancer is provided in this report.