Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide and is the number one cause of cancer deaths. Current treatments for Non-small Cell Lung Cancers (NSCLCs), the most common type of lung cancer, are determined by multiple factors but nearly all include radiation therapy treatment. Interestingly, male patients with NSCLC are more likely to have a worse outcome than female patients with NSCLC after radiation treatment.
One of the biggest problems for patients with NSCLC is that after radiation treatment a good percentage of these tumors developed resistance to radiation therapy. For this reason, understanding the mechanisms of radiation resistance in NSCLC at the molecular level is essential for the development of new and better therapies.