Breast Cancer Chemotherapy | How effective is Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer?

One of the most common causes of death from cancer for both men and women is Lung cancer. It occurs most commonly between the ages of 45 and 70. Lung cancer is more common in women now than in the past because more women are smoking cigarettes.

Lung cancer that originates in the cells of the lungs is called primary lung cancer; however, cancer may also spread (metastasize) to the lung from other parts of the body. Metastatic cancers spread to the lungs most commonly from the breast, colon, prostate, kidney, thyroid gland, stomach, cervix, rectum, testis, bone, and skin (melanoma).More than 90% of primary lung cancers start in the bronchi (the large airways that branch off the trachea to supply the lungs).

Cigarette smoking is the cause of about 90% of lung cancer cases in men and about 80% of cases in women. The greater the quantity and duration of smoking, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer. About 10 to 12% of all smokers eventually develop lung cancer.

A small proportion of lung cancers (about 10% in men and about 5% in women) are caused by substances encountered or breathed in at work. Working with asbestos, radiation, arsenic, chromates, nickel, chloromethyl ethers, mustard gas, and coke-oven emissions has been linked with lung cancer. The risk of contracting lung cancer is greater in people who are exposed to these substances and who also smoke cigarettes. Air pollution causes about 1% of lung cancer cases.

The symptoms of lung cancer depend on its type, its location, and the way it spreads. Usually, the first and most common symptom is a persistent cough. People with chronic bronchitis who develop lung cancer often notice that their coughing becomes worse. If a lung cancer grows into underlying blood vessels, it may cause severe bleeding.

A lung cancer may grow into the heart, causing abnormal heart rhythms, blockage of blood flow through the heart, or fluid in the pericardial sac surrounding the heart. Symptoms of lung cancer that usually arise later include loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, and weakness.

Lung cancer may also spread through the bloodstream to the liver, brain, adrenal glands, spinal cord, and bone; less commonly lung cancer may spread to other parts of the body.

Diagnosis

A doctor explores the possibility of lung cancer when a person, especially a smoker, has a persistent or worsening cough or other lung symptoms (such as shortness of breath or coughed-up sputum tinged with blood). Sometimes a shadow on a chest x-ray of someone with no symptoms provides the first clue, although a shadow on an x-ray is not proof of cancer. A chest x-ray can detect most lung tumors, although it may miss small ones.

A computed tomography (CT) may show small nodules that do not appear on chest x-rays. CT can also reveal whether the lymph nodes are enlarged; a biopsy of enlarged lymph nodes is often needed to determine if inflammation or cancer is responsible for the enlargement.

Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy, sometimes coupled with radiation therapy, is the treatment of choice for small cell carcinoma of the lung. This is because the cancer has almost always spread to distant parts of the body by the time of diagnosis. In about 25% of people, chemotherapy substantially prolongs survival. Without chemotherapy, only half of the people with small cell carcinoma survive 4 months. With chemotherapy, there is a four-to fivefold increase in survival. People with small cell carcinoma of the lung who have been responding well to chemotherapy may benefit from radiation therapy to the head to treat cancer that has spread to the brain, even though the spread is early enough that no symptoms are apparent and nothing abnormal can be seen on a CT or MRI of the head.

The effectiveness of chemotherapy alone is very limited for no small cell lung cancer. In metastatic no small cell lung cancer, some people survive significantly longer when given chemotherapy than if they had not received it.