Evolutionary growth of knowledge in path-breaking targeted therapies for lung cancer: radical innovations and structure of the new technological paradigm

Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer and it has the highest mortality rate worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolutionary growth of knowledge of radical innovations to treat lung cancer which are generating a revolution in clinical practice. The patterns of these new anticancer drugs are evolving through an allometric process of knowledge growth, driven by scientific and technological advances in genetics, genomics and proteomics as well as by multiplicity of learning mechanisms in clinical research and practice. This study shows that traditional chemotherapy agents seem to have reached the maturity phase in the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer because of the introduction of groundbreaking anticancer drugs. The current debate concerns uncertainties about the long-term effects of these radical innovations on carcinogenesis, the high cost of these drugs, and shrinking healthcare budgets. Nevertheless, these innovative treatments generate several benefits in terms of higher survival rate and quality of life. In addition, the structure, characteristics, and properties of the path-breaking technological paradigm to treat lung cancer can lay the foundations for a vital basic scientific framework for effective anticancer treatments in the not-too-distant future.