In the past decade the advent of target therapy has led to a silent revolution in the treatment of lung cancer. Thanks to the specificity of their target, new tailored drugs are able to achieve a larger benefit and lower toxicity and provide better quality of life than cytotoxic drugs in a limited number of patients, selected by molecular profile. Nowadays, the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors erlotinib and gefitinib, and the anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitor crizotinib, are targeted agents approved for treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer. The past decade has witnessed a silent revolution in the war against cancer, thanks to the advent of new therapies, which target specific mutations related to cancer cell proliferation and survival in different types of tumors. Among all cancers, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in most countries, with 159,260 expected deaths in the United States in 2014. Lung cancer occurs predominately in people between 50 and 70 years old, but the risk of developing this cancer reaches a peak in people older than 70 years. Lung cancer incidence decreased in the past two decades in several countries, including the United States, following a decreased rate of smoking. At the same time, the incidence among women, including former or never smokers, is rapidly increasing.1 The discovery of "oncogenic driver mutations" and the subsequent development of tailored agents has radically changed the treatment of lung cancer in ten years, leading to the development of personalized strategies. 2,3 Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was traditionally classified, based on histologic features, as adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and other nonspecified subtypes, which represent about 55%, 35%, and 10% of all NSCLC cases, respectively. In the early 1990s treatment approaches available for patients with lung cancer were poor, with a median survival of 2 to 4This article was externally peer reviewed.