Types of Lung Cancer Small Cell

types of lung cancer small cell via lungevity.org

When we think about a lung cancer that is being diagnosed for a person many people think of lung cancer as one single entity however what we know is that lung cancer is an entire

spectrum of different kinds of cancers that have just started inside the lungs so at the very

first blush when we think about breaking those different lung cancers apart in order to

understand how that cancer may need to best be treated and what the behavior of that cancer

is the first broad breakdown that we look at there the is a category we call small cell lung

cancer and then other lung cancers are in a broad category we generally term non-small-cell

lung cancer and the reason that there is that first separation is that small cell lung cancers

behave in a very different fashion than a non small cell lung cancer so when a small cell lung cancer forms these are very rapidly dividing rapidly moving cancers that tend to spread very

quickly in the body and a very classic story that people tell when they're diagnosed the small

cell lung cancer is that they were feeling fine and that they suddenly became very ill this is not

a cancer that sneaks up on a person over the course of a year or they've had a gradual decline

or gradual symptom onset over that time this is something that hits people harder and faster

 than that when a small cell lung cancer is diagnosed because of how rapidly it moves in the

body for the vast majority of people starting with trying to remove the cancer by surgery is

not going to be helpful because that only would attempt to tackle something locally and the

problem is more systemic so when we think about small cell lung cancer there is urgency to

start a treatment because of how quickly people get sick and how rapidly it spreads in the body

and when we think about that what that means is starting urgently with chemotherapy which then as a systemic treatment that is traveling through the bloodstream helps to treat the

cancer wherever it may be located in the body the next question that we need to look at is

 understanding head to toe where that lung cancer where that small cell is located in the body

and as we think about these lung cancers in general we consider whether that cancer may be

 still limited inside the lung area where it started or whether the cancer may have become

more extensive where it has spread in other locations in the body in general if a person has a cancer that is limited into in the chest where it started then we may be able to think about

treating that cancer with the attempt to try to cure it using the combination of chemotherapy

in addition to radiation right to where the cancer is located if the cancer is extensive in the

body then at that time what we know is that although the cancer is very treatable the cancer

at that time is not going to be curable and so we generally start with chemotherapy in both

 situations because of the high risk of the cancer spreading to the brain small cell lung cancer

spreads to the brain very quickly then after the chemo and radiation therapy or after

chemotherapy alone one considers preventive low-dose radiation to the brain the reason that

 we talked about the urgency with starting treatment is because if left untreated small cell lung

cancer can take a person's life generally within weeks of the time that they are diagnosed

however if it is diagnosed and treatment is started quickly for those patients who have limited

stage disease then a small number of people can have their cancer cured meaning going on to

 live the rest of their life without that cancer coming back and even if the cancer is not able

to be cured the treatment in either setting can significantly help to prolong life and to help with quality of life. Next What Types of Lung Cancer are There?
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