|  | Cancer | Lung Cancer

What Are the Benefits of Radiation & Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2005 alone, 196,687 people in the United States were diagnosed with lung cancer. That same year, 159,217 died from the disease. Two of the leading treatments for lung cancer are chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

  1. Chemotherapy for Control

    • One of the benefits of chemotherapy for long cancer is the ability to help control the spreading (metastasis) of the cancer to other areas of the body. Since most chemotherapy drugs circulate throughout the entire body, the medication is able to target growing cancer cells that may not have been discovered yet.

    Chemotherapy as a Cure

    • In some cases, chemotherapy may even act as a cure for lung cancer. This occurs when chemotherapy is able to completely kill, or place into remission, the lung cancer cells in the body. This does not mean that the lung cancer cannot recur.

    Chemotherapy for Pain Relief

    • Chemotherapy can also be used as pain relief. As tumors grow, they can place pressure on the surrounding structures, including internal organs. Chemotherapy has the ability to shrink tumors, which can then relieve some of the pain caused by the increase in pressure.

    Prophylactic Radiation Therapy

    • Radiation, like chemotherapy, can help prevent a lung cancer from spreading by targeting areas where it is most likely to spread (like surrounding lymph nodes). Because radiation therapy can be targeted to individual areas, it can prevent metastasis without as many side effects as chemotherapy.

    Palliative Radiation Therapy

    • Palliative radiation therapy can also be helpful for lung cancer, because it helps relieve the pain of growing tumors that cause pressure on the lung tissues. It does this by reducing the size of the tumor.

    Radiation Cure

    • Radiation, like chemotherapy, may also act as a cure for lung cancer. This usually occurs only when lung cancer has been discovered in its early stages and has not yet had a chance to spread to surrounding tissue, lymph nodes or the bloodstream.

Lung Cancer - Related Articles