Challenges and controversies in thoracic oncology: a new ERJ series.

Appearing in the present issue of European Respiratory Journal is the first article of a new series dealing with challenges and controversies in thoracic oncology. The uniqueness of the series lies in the multidisciplinary approach to the choice of the topics and authors. Indeed, thoracic oncology, which mainly deals with the most important cancer in term of mortality, is involved in many medical disciplines: epidemiology, pathology, biology, chest medicine, imaging, medical oncology, radiation oncology, surgical oncology, and so on. Care proposals are today decided in multidisciplinary conferences where all those specialties should be represented and where the chest physician has a key role [1–3]. In addition, our knowledge about malignant diseases of the chest, whether common or rare, has substantially improved, particularly in the biology field, leading to the identification of therapeutic targets for which the first routine applications are available.