10. For the treatment of cancer of the upper sulcus of the lung, is postoperative radiotherapy still needed?

Is surgery performed as soon as the radiotherapy is finished? Prof. Jian You: If you do simultaneous radiotherapy before surgery, you usually need to do it for one month. After the radiotherapy is finished, you need to wait for another month before surgery. This is because after the radiotherapy, the tumor has shrunk to the maximum extent and the edema of the surrounding tissues has subsided, but the adhesion of the tissues has not come out completely. Waiting for 1 month after the end of radiotherapy before surgery will result in less bleeding, preservation of anatomical gaps, and reduced surgical difficulty. After surgery, do I still need to consider radiotherapy or chemotherapy for upper lung sulcus cancer? How to choose between radiotherapy and chemotherapy? Prof. Jian You: After surgery, if it is early lung cancer with less local infiltration of the tumor, chemotherapy may not be done; if patients have had half amount of radiotherapy before surgery, it is advocated to finish the remaining half amount after surgery; for patients with tissue infiltration, adjuvant chemotherapy is still needed. If the patient’s physical condition is good, it is recommended to synchronize radiotherapy to achieve the effect of 1+1>2.