Use of Antisense Oligonucleotides for Therapy: Manipulation of Apoptosis Inhibitors for Destruction of Lung Cancer Cells

Lung cancer is the second cause of death after cardiovascular diseases and is the major cause of cancer deaths in the Western world. Lung cancer can be divided into two main categories, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Due to the enormity of the problem of lung cancer throughout the world and the bad prognosis for many subtypes, mainly related to the development of therapy resistance in tumor cells, the need for novel/alternative therapies is immense. Investigations into the development of drug resistance have led to the discovery of many molecular abnormalities in lung cancer cells, including overexpression of the oncogenes ras, myc, c-erbB-2 and bcl-2, and the loss of function of the tumor-suppressor genes Rb, p53, and p16^INK4A (1 ).