Salivary gland–like carcinomas of the lung generally refers a class of rare cancers that arise from the uncontrolled cell division (mitosis) of mutated cancer stem cells in lung tissue.
[3] Over 50 different histological variants are explicitly recognized within the 2004 revision of the World Health Organization (WHO) typing system ("WHO-2004"), currently the most widely used lung cancer classification scheme.
[4] However, since different forms of malignant tumors generally exhibit diverse genetic, biological, and clinical properties — including response to treatment — accurate classification of lung cancer cases are critical to assuring that patients with lung cancer receive optimum management.
[5][6] Under WHO-2004, lung carcinomas are divided into 8 major taxa:[1] Treatment options may include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
Icotinib has been temporarily effective at treating salivary gland-like carcinoma of the lung but loses efficiency after three months.