Abstract: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Acquired drug resistance and metastasis are the main causes of treatment failure in lung cancer. Tumor microenvironment is a complex network for the survival and progression of tumor cells, in which inflammatory factors play a critical role in drug resistance and metastasis. Interleukin (IL)-8 is one of critical pro-inflammatory cytokines responsible for cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis, drug resistance and early recurrence in lung cancer. A serum based approach is advantageous for providing a real-time detection and evaluation of disease status in patients. In this review, we summarize the recent advances of IL-8 in predicting prognosis and radiation-induced lung toxicity (RILT), as well as increasing resistance and stem-like characteristics of lung cancer.

Key words: lung neoplasms, interleukin-8, cancer stem cells, prognosis, review