Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men and women in the United States. Several factors affect survival in nonsmall-cell lung cancer [NSCLC; i.e., stage, age, Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS)]. The 5-yr survival rate is<15% for newly diagnosed cases following conventional treatments. Tumor oncogenetic defects appear to be associated with adverse survival (1 ,2 ). The presence of arasmutation or p21ras oncoprotein overexpression correlates with an unfavorable prognosis for patients with nonsmall-cell lung cancer (3 ). These findings suggest that abnormalrasfunction contributes to pathophysiology, and raise the possibility that reversal of aberrantrasactivity may serve as a viable therapeutic approach.
