Treatments to fight lung cancer

Lung cancer causes one million deaths annually worldwide. In Spain alone, 20,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Its relationship with tobacco is direct: smokers have a risk 20 times higher than people who have never smoked.

In early stages the disease is confined to the lung and cure is possible, mainly by surgery and sometimes by radiotherapy. The problem is that at this stage the disease produces no symptoms and there is no official early detection program.

Recently it has been shown that CT (computed tomography) surveillance in smokers detects many early cases and significantly improves survival. Lung cancer in non-smokers is infrequent but its incidence is increasing, although its causes are not yet known.

The treatment

When metastatic disease is present, the chances of cure are drastically reduced, but it is important that each case is evaluated on an individual basis. In certain situations, such as single metastases, salvage strategies can be applied.

The treatment of lung cancer with multiple metastases is carried out with drugs: from chemotherapy administered by the venous route to the new targeted drugs, which are often oral. Recent advances in this field have led to a revolution driven by detailed knowledge of the genetic alterations that occur in cancer cells. Thus, different subtypes of lung cancer are identified and each of them can be treated with targeted drugs, which are much more effective and have fewer side effects.

While in many instances these new drugs are not yet capable of curing widespread disease, they can slow and reduce it for prolonged periods of time, sometimes for years, with minimal impact on the patient’s quality of life.