Surgery as a lung cancer treatment option
The kind of lung cancer treatment a patient receives depends on a number of factors. They include the overall health of the patient, the location of the cancer, its size, type, the extent to which it has spread to other body organs and more.
In general, there are five different kinds lung cancer treatment. Surgery and chemotherapy are widely known options, as is radiation treatment. Other treatments include cryosurgery and photodynamic therapy (abbreviated PDT.)
Let's take a detailed look at one of the options - surgery.
Surgery may be a good lung cancer treatment option in the early stages. This is particularly true of non-small cell lung cancer. If the size of the malignant tumor is fairly small and the cancer has not metastasized (i.e., spread to other parts of the body), surgical removal can mean that the patient has a 80% chance of surviving beyond five years.
It is characteristic of small-cell lung cancer that it spreads quickly to other parts of the body even before it becomes focused in the lung. In such cases, surgery is of no use.
The more common type of cancer - non-small cell lung cancer - does not usually spread as fast or as much as the small-cell variety. The tumor tends to be concentrated in one small area. In such cases, surgery can be used with success.
There are other factors too, that determine the lung cancer treatment chosen. Even with a localized tumor, if it is located very close to critical organs like the heart, surgery may not be advisable because of other risks involved. Chemotherapy may be the prescribed option in those instances.
There are three types of surgery used for treatment. If the cancer is truly localized and has affected only a small part of the lung, the surgeon may do a segmentectomy (also known as lung resection.) This removes only a small part of a lung.
A second option is a lobectomy. This is done where the lung cancer has spread somewhat and one part of the lung has been affected, even though the entire lung has not been damaged. In such cases, the surgeon may remove one or a few lobes of the lung.
If an entire lung has been affected by the cancer, the surgeon may look at doing a pneumonectomy, which is removal of a complete lung. Before doing this operation, the surgeon will do extensive testing to make sure the one lung remaining can supply the body's needs well.
Overall, surgery may not necessarily be the best lung cancer treatment in all cases. The doctor will opt for surgery only if there is a good chance that doing so will get rid of the cancer completely.
