cramerjohn004
202 posts
Jul 06, 2023
4:51 AM
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Radiation therapy is most often used in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapy. External beam radiation and Brachytherapy are the two primary therapies used for the treatment of lung cancer. External beam radiation therapy is often used in those cases when the health of the patient is poor and surgery isn't an option. Brachytherapy is commonly used to relieve a blockage of large airways.
Occasionally, radiation therapy is recommended as the sole treatment option for lung cancer. Generally, this will happen in those situations when the patient is too ill to undergo surgery or withstand chemotherapy. When radiation therapy is used as the sole treatment for lung cancer, it results in the shrinking of tumors and complete remission from cancer symptoms approximately 10-15% of the time.
Surgery
If lung cancer is caught in the early stages, particularly stage one non-small cell Lung Adenocarcinoma Stage III, surgery to remove the tumor is often the preferred treatment. At this stage, the cancer is confined to the lungs, often in the form of a single tumor, and surgery can be quite effective at removing most or all of it. However, the more advanced a lung cancer becomes, the less effective surgery becomes. Once it spreads beyond the chest and metastasizes to other organs, surgery is generally ineffective and not a workable option.
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