Question

The patient is a 60 year old man who has just been diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer. He smoked cigarettes for about 25 years starting when he was 16 years old and quit when he was 41 years old. His lung cancer is at stage I in the left lower lobe. He is distraught, saying that he can’t die now because he has one child in college and two in high school. He also fears chemotherapy and seems bitter that he quit smoking and got lung cancer anyway. His next statement is; “Why couldn’t I get prostate cancer like most men? At least they survive. No one beats lung cancer.” What can you tell him about lung cancer survival? What can you tell him about the benefits of having quit smoking? For this cancer stage and type, what is/are the most likely therapy/therapies? What resources could you recommend to help him at this time?

Answer 1

The patient needs a psychological, emotional and a physical support to manage this dangerous disease effectively until he survive.The lung cancer in its first  stage has high survival with good life style management. The non small cell lung cancer spreads slowly compared to small cell carcinoma. The patient is in stage 1A which has a tentative life expectancy of 5 years.A person who I healthy at te time of diagnosis has a long survival rate compared to others.Usually after treatment the recurrence rate is much lower than 30%_59%

The main benefit of stopping smoking is, it will increase the survival rate by 60%.

The most likely treatment available for this stage are

• Surgery:lobectomy is the best way to remive the cancer cells and has a good progress
• For non surgical treatment, the targeted therapy will be more useful .This will attack the can cell cells and destroy it without damaging the nearby cells.
• Stereotactic body radiotherapy
• Proton therapy
• Molecular profiling cannon done and the specific genetic mutated cancer cells can be destroyed

Some of the resource which could help this patient are

• American thoracic society
• Canadian cancer society
• Lung cancer support groups
• National lung cancer support group