How To Treat Patients of Lung Cancer
How to treat lung cancer for those of you who have been infected there are several ways. This treatment generally will look at many factors including the patient's health condition, medical history, and stage of the cancer being treated. Some way was to treat patients with lung cancer are: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies.
Surgery in patients with lung cancer in the form of the action has taken to remove the tumor tissue and surrounding lymph nodes. Surgery is done for cancer that has not spread to other tissues outside d lung tissue. In general, surgery is reserved for patients with NSCL and limited to one part of the lung to stage 3A.
There are 3 types of surgery that can be done to cure the patient NSCL, such as:
- Pneumonectomy, in which the entire lungs ( left or right ) was appointed to this operation,
- Lobectomy , which begin lung lobe removed in this operation,
- Segmentectomy or wedge resection, in which part of a lobe is removed in this operation.
As for the potential failure of the surgical procedure is approximately 4.4 %, depending on the function of lungs and some other risk patients In the case of lung cancer is advanced stage, around the patient's chest cavity will gather a lot of fluids so that needs to be made a small hole to dispense the liquid .
Treatment of lung cancer with radiotherapy that is done with radiation made major steps to cure lung cancer patients. Radiotherapy is used as an alternative treatment option for patients who are not healthy enough to undergo surgery. To shrink cancers lodged in the lungs can also be used radiotherapy. However, for cases of lung cancer advanced stage, radiotherapy can be useful to reduce pain, bleeding, and difficulty when swallowing.
However, there are side effects after radiation which can cause problems with the skin, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Moreover, done around chest radiation will caused damage to the lungs and difficulty breathing or swallowing.
Action of chemotherapy and radiotherapy for patients of lung cancer when surgery not a significant effect on patient survival. Primary chemotherapy is usually done in the case or metastatic NSCLC that had spread. For NSCLC patients are usually given a drug cisplatin or carboplatin in combination with gemcitabine , paclitaxel , etoposide , or vinorelbine . For SCLC patients are often given drugs cisplatin and etoposide. Or it could be combined with carboplatin , gemcitabine , paclitaxel , vinorelbine , topotecan , and irinotecan.
Targeted therapy performed on lung cancer patient stages 3 and 4 who did not respond to other treatments. There are two kinds of targeted therapy is most commonly used, namely:
- Erlotinib which cancer cells are covered by a protein called EGFR (Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor). This protein serves to help the cancer cells to divide. Tarceva works better in patients with non-smokers or women younger age (before menopause). Tarceva is like a pill form so it is easy to be consumed daily.
- Bevacizumab is used antibodies against proteins that help tumor cells to form new blood vessels. This drug is able to prolong the survival of patients with advanced NSCLC, and is usually given in combination with chemotherapy, carboplatin and paclitaxel . Bevacizumab is usually given by intravenous infusion and generally have side effects such as bleeding in the lungs.
Those are some ways of treatment of lung cancer patients that could be done in order to heal properly managed.
