About Lung Cancer Treatment and Recovery

Most people are unaware that lung cancer is the number one cause of deaths occurring from cancer for both women and men in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control reported that 203,536 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007 and of these 158,683 died as a result of the cancer. Treatment and recovery is important to understand.

Early Symptoms and Diagnosis Crucial

One of the problems with lung cancer and why it has such a high mortality rate is that early symptoms are often ignored. By the time the patient is diagnosed, the cancer has metastasized or spread to other organs, particularly the liver. Once the cancer has spread, it is very hard to develop a treatment plan to treat since cancer in the liver has to be treated differently than lung cancer.

If you have any of the following symptoms regardless if you smoke or not see your doctor immediately. These include constant coughing that seems to worsen, productive cough, losing weight, no appetite, feeling fatigued, and repeated bouts of bronchitis or pneumonia.

Treatment and Recovery 

Treatment may include surgically removing the cancer from the lung if that is possible. It depends on where the tumor is in the lung. There are times the tumor simply cannot be operated on and therefore chemotherapy is started immediately. Even if the tumor can be removed, the patient still undergoes chemotherapy. Radiation and laser or photodynamic therapy may also be needed.

Recovery after the treatment consists of several follow up visits with your oncologist. These are crucial to go to because they will take more images of your lungs and possibly a PET scan to make sure the cancer has not spread to any other organ. You may need to take a long leave from your job as your recover from surgery and treatment.