What Treatment Options are Available for Lung Cancer?
Your treatment plan is individualized. It is based on a number of factors, including type and stage of lung cancer, and your health status. It is important to discuss the goals of lung cancer treatment with your doctor.
Surgery
Surgery is still considered the standard for treating early-stage lung cancer. Removing the tumor and surrounding lung tissue margin gives the best chance for cure when the lung cancer is confined to the lungs. Your surgeon removes the lung cancer with a margin of healthy tissue. This may be performed by robotic-assisted surgery or video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS). Surgical resection of lung cancer is generally performed as:
- Lobectomy: removal of an entire lobe of the lung (there are three lobes on the right and two on the left). Most common surgery performed for lung cancer.
- Pneumonectomy: Removal of an entire lung.
- Segmentectomy: remove a large portion of the lung but not the entire lobe
- Wedge Resection: removing a small piece of the lung that contains the tumor
If you have a larger lung cancer or it has spread from the lungs, your doctor may recommend chemotherapy or radiation.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells. It may be given intravenously through a vein or taken orally. Chemotherapy can be used before surgery to shrink the tumor (for larger tumors), or it can be used after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells.
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy used x-rays and protons to kill cancer cells. It is usually used in combination with chemotherapy for locally advanced lung cancer. It can also be used for focused therapy (stereotactic body radiotherapy), where there is maximum effect on the cancer cells with minimal injury to normal, healthy lung tissue. This type of radiation is usually used in people who have small lung cancers who can't undergo surgery.
Targeted Drug Therapy
Targeted drug therapy focuses on specific gene abnormalities present within cancer cells, causing them to die.
Our Research and Clinical Trials for Lung Cancer
We have the largest clinical research team in New Jersey. Our thoracic oncologists are actively involved in clinical trials that assess new treatments that have the potential to be more effective than existing therapies.
You may be able to receive an innovative therapy, including investigational drugs that other centers do not offer. More than 100 people with operable and metastatic lung cancer each year enroll in Phase I clinical trials using novel treatments. Your care team will let you know if you may be eligible to participate in a clinical trial
Learn more about our Clinical Trials
