1. Look For This Unusual Symptom
Small-cell lung cancer can cause symptoms including coughing, chest pain, weight loss or fatigue. However, superior vena cava syndrome is a less-common symptom that develops when a tumor blocks the blood flow returning to the heart through a vein. When this blockage occurs, patients may experience swelling in the face or neck, a sensation of fullness in the upper body, swelling in their arms or difficulty swallowing. Doctors relieve the symptoms of superior vena cava syndrome by treating the cancer or administering comfort measures, such as placing a tube in the blocked vein to open it or giving drugs to reduce swelling.
2. Aggressive Cancer Requires Aggressive Treatment
Small-cell lung cancer can spread quickly to other parts of the body. When the cancer spreads or metastasizes to other organs, surgery is usually not an option. Instead, doctors elect to use chemotherapy drugs, which travel throughout the body to kill cancer cells that have spread to places such as the bones or liver. In addition to the systemic treatment of chemotherapy, radiation therapy can kill cancer cells in targeted areas with high-energy X-rays.
3. Combine Treatments to Improve Survival
Doctors have long combined radiation therapy and chemotherapy to treat this aggressive type of lung cancer. However, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed the best way to combine these treatment modalities. Patients who received two daily sessions of radiation therapy, in addition to the standard chemotherapy drugs, had a better survival outlook than patients who received radiation therapy only once a day with the drugs. Ask your doctor if this treatment approach is the best choice for you.
4. Protect What Is Vital
Small-cell lung cancer has a strong propensity to metastasize to the brain. Doctors can take advantage of this knowledge by administering treatment to protect the brain from encroaching cancer cells. Small-cell lung cancer patients may receive prophylactic cranial irradiation, which is radiation therapy given to the brain to prevent cancer from developing there. Patients who undergo this preventive therapy may reduce their risk of brain tumors by half.
5. Treatment Help is on the Way
Ask your doctor about the possibility of participating in research studies evaluating new treatments. Every advancement in the treatment of small-cell lung cancer is the result of clinical trials that revealed new drugs or better ways of administering standard treatments. Clinical trial patients shouldn't worry about receiving a placebo or "sugar pill;" in many studies, one group of patients receives the standard treatment, while another group receives the new treatment.
