Cancer Information

Posts Tagged ‘radiotherapy’

Overall, pleural tumors can not be removed surgically. It must treat the original cancer (primary). Depending on the type of primary cancer, radiotherapy or chemotherapy may be appropriate.

Therapeutic thoracentesis may be performed if fluid accumulation is large and causing pressure, shortness of breath or other breathing problems (such as low oxygen levels). Removing the fluid may allow the lung to expand more and can ease breathing difficulties.

To prevent fluid from building up again, sometimes medication will be placed in the thoracic space through a tube or a surgeon can insert a scope through a small incision in the chest wall to remove fluid (thoracoscopy). Then a drug is sprayed or powder on the surface to prevent lung cancer cells produce more fluid in the future.

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In most cases, metastatic cancer to the lung is a sign that the cancer has spread into the bloodstream. Usually cancer will be present even in places not seen by CT scans. In these circumstances, removing the visible tumors by surgery usually is not much, so usually opt for chemotherapy.

Sometimes when the primary tumor has been removed and the cancer has spread to only limited areas of the lung, lung tumors can be removed with surgery. However, the primary tumor should be curable lung tumors must be completely removed and the patient should be strong enough to undergo surgery and recovery.

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Mainly, there are three types of treatment and its use will depend on the type of lung cancer and the stage where you are.

If you are in an early stage can remove the tumor quirúrgicamente.Ahora if it has already spread is used to radiotherapy (high energy X rays) or a combination thereof and chemotherapy (drugs effective against cancer cells).

Treatment is essential because a patient with untreated lung cancer has an average survival of six months.

Unfortunately, radiation therapy also produces side effects, although usually limited to the area where applicable. The appearance and intensity of these side effects depends on the technique used, the total radiation dose administered, the volume of the irradiated area and susceptibility and associated diseases of each patient.

Side effects of radiation are the result of an acute inflammatory process and / or chronic localized to the skin and organs exposed to radiation. One can distinguish between general side effects of radiotherapy treatment and specific treatment of lung cancer:

- General effects:
The most important overall effect is tiredness or fatigue. Often during radiotherapy the patient is more tired than usual. Usually the result of the combined effects of treatment itself, other associated treatments and commuting to the hospital. The fatigue is temporary and disappears some time after completion of radiotherapy.

Although in most cases you can maintain normal activity levels, rest after the daily session of radiotherapy and no intense efforts or activities which may increase tiredness.

- Specific effects of the treatment area:
* Skin reactions (radiodermatitis): The radiation causes skin irritation only in the treatment area. The skin of the treated area can be altered very similar to a sunburn, although it is a rare effect with current techniques. At two or three weeks after starting therapy may appreciate the same redness (erythema). As treatment progresses, the skin area is becoming more pigmented and dark coloration, which disappears in one or two months after completion of radiotherapy.

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Radiotherapy is the use of high energy ionizing radiation in order to stop the growth and division of cancer cells in the area where they are used. It is used as local therapy (in the area where the tumor) or locoregional therapy (when including also the nodes near the tumor).

In the case of lung cancer, external radiation is applied, ie, radiation is administered from the outside by a radiation-generating equipment (linear accelerator). The advantage of external beam radiation is not require admission to hospital or is painful for the patient, and is managed by specialists in radiation oncology.

Social relations, labor and patient’s family need not be affected by the fact be receiving this therapy. With external beam therapy radiation is not apparent at any time during or after treatment. Thus, once the daily treatment, the patient may be in contact with others, does not emit any radioactivity.

Limited Stage
In general, chemotherapy is used as primary treatment, with the use of several drugs in combination.

With chemotherapy is used radiotherapy to the chest. Patients who respond well to initial treatment is administered, so preventive radiation to the head. This is because the brain is one of the sites where metastases frequently occur.

In most patients, these tumors resolve with treatment, but soon reappear becoming resistant to treatment. The survival rate of two years in the limited stage, is 40% to 50% but is reduced by 10% to 20% for five years.

Many studies are underway to test the effectiveness of other treatments such as immunotherapy or gene therapy.

Extensive stage
The prognosis at this stage is very bad if left untreated cancer. Chemotherapy may be used to treat symptoms and flatter short-term survival.

Treatment with two or more drugs can shrink tumors in about 70% to 80% of these patients. Radiation therapy is also used to control symptoms and prevent the occurrence of brain metastases.

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Radiation therapy uses high energy X-radiation to destroy cancer cells. It uses a device called a linear accelerator that sends rays to the affected area only.

This lung cancer treatment is used sometimes as a primary or principal in patients who can not undergo surgery. In this case, is not to cure but slow the progression of the disease, although some exceptional cases come to heal without surgery, radiation therapy alone.

Radiation therapy to the lung is often used to relieve an airway obstruction leading to cancer.

When radiotherapy is used as a secondary treatment after surgery is primarily used to destroy cells that have not been removed.

Another use for which radiotherapy is used to relieve cancer-causing symptoms such as pain, difficulty swallowing, and so on.

Treatment for these patients consist of a combination of several techniques that are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Each of them will be more effective than the other depending on the type of cancer and the stage where they are. In fact, treatment depends on four factors: the type and extent of spread of the tumor, the patient’s health status and functional status of the various body systems (heart, liver, kidney, neurological, etc.)..

Lung cancer surgery is the treatment modality most likely to be curative, therefore, is resorted to if all of the cancer can not be removed and respiratory status of the patient to tolerate the removal of the portion of lung to be removed.

Small cell lung cancers are very rarely operate, since it is almost always diagnosed extensive stage when only limited is operable. Approximately half of non-small lung cancers can be removed due to its extension. It is therefore essential that there are no lymph metastasis and central area of the chest (mediastinum) are free of tumor and the tumor has not invaded ineradicable structures as the trachea, the aorta or the pleura.

You can remove only a small portion of the lung, if the tumor is very localized, to be called wedge resection or segmentectomy.

If you removed a lobe of the lung is called lobectomy.

If you remove the entire lung, it is called pneumonectomy.

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