Australian doctors on Saturday said they have found a lung cancer treatment that could turn a common form of the highly lethal disease into a manageable condition such as diabetes.

In what is being labeled the biggest breakthrough in lung cancer to date, scientists from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Australia have developed a drug therapy they believe can shut down a defective gene that causes diseased lung tissue to grow out of control.

The gene is present in 25 percent of lung cancer patients.

Professor Gavin Wright said laboratory models of the disease had shown that the drugs should destroy the tumors in about 80 percent of these people.

A trial of the drugs on patients with squamous cell lung tumors will begin in Victoria next year. Prof Wright hopes other hospitals around the world will join them to accelerate the testing process, adding that if the trials show the drugs are safe and effective, the treatment could be available to patients in three to five years.

"The drugs can also stop the tumors growing and make them smaller. That effect could last for many years," he told Canberra Times on Saturday.

"This is a significant advance ... It could transform this often lethal form of lung cancer into a more manageable chronic disease like diabetes."

Prof Wright expected the drugs would be better than other cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, which often led to problems including hair loss, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.

Meanwhile, Chief executive of the Cancer Council Australia, Ian Olver, praised the finding, which was reported in Science Translational Medicine this week.