Lung Cancer Treatment Options

A number of factors influence which lung cancer treatment options are available to an individual. Vital to this decision is the determination of cancer stage, the medical classification of a tumor's growth, location, and severity. If the cancer stage is low (Stage 1 or 2), surgical removal of the tumor may be possible. Higher stages may restrict treatment options. By Stage 4, treatment options are usually limited to palliative care.

The Best Treatment for YouYour oncologist will recommend the course or courses of treatment that are best for your situation. But chances are you'll still have to do some research on your own before making a decision. You'll find all the pertinent information in one place: the Lung Cancer Treatment Decision Tool.

Treatment OptionsCurrently, four major categories of lung cancer treatment are used. Each is given its own page on this site. A novel lung cancer treatment may be right for you.

Surgery: Early stage tumors are often possible to remove surgically. Depending on the location and size of the tumor, the surgeon may remove a portion of the lung, or even an entire lung (a procedure called a pneumonectomy).

Radiotherapy: Using radiation and x-rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors, radiotherapy can be a treatment in itself, or be used prior to surgery to make tumor removal easier.

Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy uses powerful, cytotoxic drugs (those that are toxic to cells) to slow tumor growth and kill fast-growing cells. Some forms of lung cancer respond very well to chemotherapy, although due to the systemic nature of the drugs used, healthy cells are damaged, too.

Palliative therapy: Curing the disease may not be an option with advanced lung tumors, especially if the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. Palliative therapy provides relief from pain and other symptoms.

Clinical Trials: Advancing Lung Cancer TreatmentIn addition to these four treatment options, clinical trials provide participants with access to cutting-edge treatments that have yet to be approved for general use. Lung cancer clinical trial researchers are always in need of participants. As the disease is often diagnosed after age sixty, researchers are especially in need of participants in the sixty to seventy age range.

Participating in a clinical trial exposes you to otherwise unavailable treatment options. Some of the more exciting areas of research include the following:

Gene Therapy: Genetic research has answered many questions about how abnormal cells develop, grow and spread. Now gene therapy is attempting to put that knowledge to use. Typical gene therapy clinical trials might concentrate on a number of possible goals, including:

Improving the immune system's ability to detect and attack tumors
Correcting the genetic damage that causes tumor growth
Blocking proteins that tumors require for growth
Developing "smart" drugs that only attack cancerous cells.

Angiogenesis and Thalidomide: The body's ability to grow new blood vessels is called angiogenesis. Tumors grow their own blood vessels as they grow. The medication thalidomide inhibits angiogenesis. Without new blood vessels, tumors cannot grow. Thalidomide is receiving a great deal of attention in clinical trials.

Out-of-Body Radiation: Conventional radiation therapy cannot deliver large doses of radiation to malignant cells without damaging the healthy tissue around the tumor. Out-of-body radiation therapy uses surgery to remove the entire organ, treat it with high levels of radiation to kill cancer cells, and then surgically reattach the organ.