A new approach to lung cancer treatment

  Lung cancer is a common and frequent disease of malignant tumors, and currently has the highest incidence rate in the world. In China, the incidence rate of lung cancer ranks the first in urban areas and the second in rural areas. With the deepening of medical research and the development of science and technology, the strategies of lung cancer treatment are constantly updated.  I. Treatment strategy advocates individualization With the continuous updating of medical knowledge, the mode of clinical treatment is constantly changing, from empirical medicine in the past to individualized treatment based on inquiry medicine.1 The research of basic medicine directly affects the clinical treatment strategy, and pathological diagnosis and further immunohistochemical testing play a guiding role in clinical treatment. The main drug for lung cancer chemotherapy is platinum combined with third-generation chemotherapeutic drugs, but if the expression of proteins ERCC1, Rad51 and P53 are detected before treatment plays a predictive role for the efficacy of platinum-based chemotherapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer, individualized treatment regimens are adopted to reduce the incidence of accompanying therapy and alleviate the economic burden of patients.2. More and more studies have confirmed that actual age is not a determinant of The actual age is not the main criterion for treatment and drug usage and dose selection, but rather the functional status of the patient’s vital organs and the degree of co-morbidity. For example, some patients may be more than 70 or even 75 years old, but they can still undergo surgery or adequate radiotherapy and achieve significant clinical benefit, so the principle of individualized treatment for elderly patients should be promoted. It is important to pay attention to the fact that the organ reserve function of the elderly will gradually decline with age, and the necessary adjuvant therapy should be given along with active treatment.  II. New therapeutic tools —- clinical application of targeted therapy With the continuous development of medical molecular biology technology, molecular biology testing is increasingly used in clinical practice. A large number of studies have confirmed that EGFR-TKI can bring benefits to patients in the first-line, second-line and third-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and is clearly stated in the Chinese version of clinical practice guidelines for non-small cell lung cancer. For patients who refuse surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, there is a new and effective treatment modality —- targeted therapy, and no hospitalization is required. It should be reminded that it is better to do EGFR gene test of tumor tissue before treatment, if there is mutation in EGFR gene, the benefit rate of oral ERSA or Troche can only reach about 80%.  3. Different treatment methods for the same lung cancer type The same lung cancer but may be of different pathological types. In terms of pathological types, lung cancer is divided into small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.1 The biological characteristic of small cell lung cancer is high malignancy, which can easily cause distant metastasis such as brain and bone within a short period of time, so chemotherapy is the most basic treatment method. For limited-stage small cell lung cancer, synchronous radiotherapy is the standard treatment, and patients should receive 6 cycles of platinum-containing dual-drug chemotherapy and early adequate radiotherapy; for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, combined chemotherapy is the main treatment, and local radiotherapy plays a significant role in reducing symptoms and improving patients’ survival quality, but cannot prolong the overall survival.2, Treatment of non-small cell lung cancer should adopt the integrated treatment of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. The treatment of non-small cell lung cancer should be a combination of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. Non-small cell lung cancer I-IIIA should be actively treated by surgery, and radiotherapy should be used after surgery according to the stage and pathology. For patients with diabetes mellitus, cardiac and cerebral diseases or elderly patients who are inoperable, they can be treated with appropriate doses of radiotherapy; for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer, randomized trials have shown that simultaneous or sequential radiotherapy is more advantageous than chemotherapy or radiotherapy alone. For older patients lowering the dose of chemotherapy or using chemotherapy with a cisplatin-free regimen combined with radiotherapy is more feasible. For advanced non-small cell lung cancer, two-drug platinum-based combinations, single-agent chemotherapy with third-generation chemotherapeutic agents, non-platinum-based combination chemotherapy, and targeted drug therapy are clinically superior to best supportive care.