Despite novel therapies in lung cancer treatment the 5-year survival rate still remains poor. Furthermore, screening concepts for early diagnosis, based on conventional sputum cytology and chest radiography, have so far not demonstrated an impact on decreasing lung-cancer mortality. More specific molecular markers allow new insights in the process of lung carcinogenesis. Furthermore they raise the hope that they provide new tools for early diagnosis and screening of high-risk individuals, determination of prognosis, and identification of innovative treatments. In this review, these perspectives of molecular targets in lung cancer will be discussed and summarised. Angiogenesis-stimulating factors (VEGF, FGF, MMP, etc.), parameters concerning tumour cell proliferation and apoptosis (EGFR, p53, K-ras, rb, bcl-2, etc.) are well known. Several of these genetic factors have already been investigated, but no single parameter has yet gained a sufficient selectivity regarding prognostic significance or therapeutic efficacy. New aspects in the complex tumour-stroma interaction and the interactive, cross-talking signal transduction pathways and recently developed functional genomic approaches, such as DNA microarrays and proteomics might lead to further progress in biological staging models and treatment concepts.