Lung cancer at the intensive care unit: The era of targeted therapy

We present an illustrative case of a young woman with stage IV ALK-translocated pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Her disease dramatically worsened while waiting for central confirmation of the ALK-translocation to start treatment in a clinical trial with ceritinib, a 2nd generation ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor. She needed mechanical ventilation and veno-venous extracorporal membranous oxygenation, to have sufficient time to recover from overwhelming bilateral lung adenocarcinoma, while on treatment. She is now doing fine 1 year later.