Lung cancer treatment

A wide range of treatments and technologies are used to treat lung cancer, including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, interventional pulmonology, radiation therapy, surgery and targeted therapy. Your lung cancer treatment team may consist of several doctors, each of whom practices a specific area of medicine. They work in collaboration to answer your questions and recommend treatment options based on your individual needs.

Your team may include a:

• Pulmonologist
• Thoracic surgeon
• Medical oncologist
• Radiation oncologist

Any symptoms related to the lungs are first investigated by a pulmonologist, a doctor who has expertise in the respiratory system. If surgery is needed, you may need to consult with a thoracic surgeon, a physician who diagnoses and operates on cancer of the lungs. Medical oncologists have received special training to diagnose and treat cancer using drugs such as chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, biologic therapy and targeted therapy, while radiation oncologists use radiation therapy, or high-energy rays, to treat cancer.

The type of treatment a patient receives for lung cancer may depend on the type of lung cancer and whether the disease has metastasized (spread) to distant organs. In the past, lung cancer was generally treated with:

• Immunotherapy
• Targeted therapy
• Combined therapies

Today, with advances in treatment for lung cancer, the types of lung cancer and their treatments also include those below.

Radiation therapy for lung cancer

Radiation treatment involves the use of high-energy rays to destroy lung cancer cells. It’s similar to getting an X-ray, but the dose of radiation delivered to the area is much stronger. It typically doesn’t hurt and only takes a few minutes to complete.

Typically, radiation treatment occurs for five days per week over a period of five to seven weeks. It may take place before and/or after other treatments such as chemotherapy or surgery, but this would depend on your specific case. In addition, radiation is sometimes used palliatively to control symptoms in lung cancers that cannot be treated.

We offer two primary types of radiation therapy for lung cancer:

• External beam radiation therapy (EBRT) delivers high doses of radiation to lung cancer cells from outside the body, using a variety of machine-based technologies.
• High-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy (internal radiation) delivers high doses of radiation from implants placed close to, or inside, the tumor(s) in the body.