Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women worldwide. One of the most demonstrative challenges in lung cancer treatment is represented by targeted therapies. Thanks to systematic molecular profiling, the vast majority of lung cancer patients benefit from high-throughput sequencing of their tumor. Almost half of the patients display potentially targetable molecular alterations. Some alterations such as EGFR, ALK, ROS1, BRAF mutations clearly benefit from targeted therapies with impressive response rate and progression free survival. However, despite the initial efficacy, nearly all patients will develop resistance and the impact on overall survival is modest. This is mainly due to the early onset of resistance mechanisms. Some other alterations including KRAS (which is the most frequent one) or MET profited recently from new therapeutic strategies but, here also, with limited benefit on outcome. The ultime goal of the COALA network is to radically improve the outcome of oncogene-addicted lung cancer .
