Upregulation of LINC00346 in non-small cell lung cancer cells

In recent years, lung cancer has become a serious public health problem, ranking first as leading
cause of death among malignant neoplasms. The incidence and mortality of lung cancer have shown
an upward trend in many countries2. The main risk factors of lung cancer are smoking, improper
diet, alcohol abuse, radiation, air pollution, pulmonary disease, and occupational complications.
Although the survival rate is closely related to early diagnosis and resection, the early symptoms of
NSCLC are not typical and may even be absent, with little or no discomfort reported3.
In addition to first line chemotherapy using docetaxel, pemetrexed and erlotinib to treat
patients with advanced NSCLC, several drugs have been approved, but survival rates have not
improved in randomized clinical trials4. The efficacy of metronomic chemotherapy in metastatic
NSCLC was recently shown to be a possible option5. A new clinical scenario includes lung
cancer patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in which highly active antiretroviral
therapy (HAART) has been shown to improve lung cancer prognosis6.