Preface

Dear Doctors, Colleagues, and Friends,

With great honor we present this special issue of Translational Lung Cancer Research which is dedicated to the 14^th Central European Lung Cancer Conference (CELCC) held in Vienna, Austria, from 29 November until 2 December 2014.

CELCCs have a long tradition and have been regularly held in various cities of Central Europe since 1992. Besides focusing on molecular diagnosis and targeted therapies, this year’s conference will also have a session on the implementation of screening and a special Chinese-Central European Symposium. The latter Symposium will compare the specifics of lung cancer in China with those in Central Europe. Lung cancer is a major health problem in both China and Central Europe. While the incidence rates of smoking-related lung cancers are high in both China and Central Europe, China also has a high rate of lung cancers in never-smokers. The Symposium will address these differences and will also focus on prevention strategies currently ongoing in China and Central Europe. Possibilities for future co-operation in the field of tobacco control will be a major topic. A stronger co-operation between China and Central European countries could have synergistic effects on global tobacco control. The Symposium will also offer participants a closer insight into current treatment strategies including clinical trials in China. This information will be of particular interest for doctors of Central Europe.

This special issue of TLCR covers timely topics with regard to diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, and also contains the abstracts submitted for presentations during the 14^th CELCC. We thank the authors of the manuscripts for their valuable contributions and also those participants who have submitted their abstracts for oral or poster presentations.

We hope that the conference will meet your scientific and educational needs. We wish you to get to know new colleagues and make friends. Finally, we are optimistic that the 14^th CELCC will have synergistic effects on our common goal to decrease the burden of lung cancer in China and Central Europe.

We welcome you to the 14^th CELCC in Vienna.

Robert Pirker, MD. Division of Oncology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. (Email: Robert.Pirker@meduniwien.ac.at.)

Caicun Zhou, MD, PhD. Department of Oncology, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200433, China. (Email: caicunzhoudr@163.com.)