Jahnavi Sarma
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Today, on the occasion of World Lung Cancer Day, it is important to raise awareness about the various treatments options that are available to people today.
There are many ways of treating lung cancer. But the procedure that a doctor will ultimately adopt depends on a lot of things like the type of lung cancer and how far it has spread. People with non-small cell lung cancer are often treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and targeted therapy. Sometimes, a combination of these treatments may also be used. People with small cell lung cancer are usually treated with radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Today, on the occasion of World Lung Cancer Day, it is important to raise awareness about the various treatments options that are available to people today. It is an ongoing effort of scientists to develop better treatment procedures that will lead to better outcomes.
But it is important to know that early detection and timely treatment is essential. According to Dr Surender Kumar Dabas, Senior Director & HOD, Surgical Oncology & Robotic Surgery, BLK Super Specialty Hospital, "Due to the COVID-19 scare, patients with lung cancer symptoms are avoiding visiting the hospitals. This comes in the way of an early diagnosis. At the same time, those recently diagnosed are postponing their treatment commencement and those already on treatment are either skipping their chemotherapy or delaying their surgery." He goes on to add that the "situation is further compounded by the overlap of symptoms of lung cancer vis-a-vis COVID-19. This, in turn, means that an early stage curable cancer will eventually advance to a later stage incurable one due to lack of timely treatment intervention."
As we observe World Lung Cancer Day today, let us look at the various treatment options of this type of cancer.
In this treatment option, a surgeon will perform an operation to cut out the cancer tissue. Nowadays, there is video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), which doctors use to treat some small lung tumors. In this procedure, a surgeon will remove parts of the lung through smaller incisions. This means shorter hospital stays and less pain for patients. However, this is not widely sued for larger lung tumors.
Scientists have also developed a newer approach to this type of operation where a surgeon sits at a specially designed control panel inside the operating room to maneuver long surgical instruments using robotic arms. This is known as robotic-assisted surgery.
In this treatment option, high-energy rays (similar to X-rays) are used to kill the cancer. Researchers now use real-time tumor imaging, like four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT), to help improve treatment. A CT machine scans the chest continuously for about 30 seconds to reveal where the tumor is in relation to other structures as a person breathes. This helps doctors deliver radiation more precisely to a tumor. This technique also helps show if a tumor is attached to or invading important structures in the chest, which could help doctors determine if a patient is eligible for surgery. Brain metastases are common in lung cancer and it may often result in death. But radiation may not be an option here as it can have long-term side effects. So, for people with limited spread of lung cancer to the brain, newer radiation techniques, like SRS, is now being used. It delivers the rays to the specific tumor. This has fewer side-effects and is still effective in treating the cancer.
This is the standard treatment option of almost all cancers including lung cancer. Here a doctor uses special medicines to shrink or kill the cancer. The drugs can be pills you take, or medicines administered intravenously in your veins, or sometimes both.
Here, doctors use drugs to block the growth and spread of cancer cells. The drugs can be pills you take, or medicines administered intravenously in your veins. Scientists are constantly endeavouring to know more about the inner workings of lung cancer cells that control their growth and spread. This led to the development of new targeted therapy drugs, many of which are already being used to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Targeted drugs already being used in other cancers are now being studied in NSCLC.
Scientists are now concentrating on developing immunotherapy drugs to enable a person's immune system fight the cancer. These are called immune checkpoint inhibitors. Cancer cells contain the protein PD-L1 on their surface and this helps them evade the immune system. New drugs that block the PD-L1 protein, or the corresponding PD-1 protein on immune cells called T cells, can help the immune system recognize the cancer cells and attack them. Some of these drugs are now approved for use in advanced NSCLC. Research is on to see if giving an immunotherapy drug along with radiation therapy in people who can't have surgery can improve prognosis.