What does it mean if you have been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and your disease is in an advanced stage?
You need to know these basic facts first.
1. The extent of the tumor
SCLC is a type of lung cancer that is highly malignant and prone to metastasis in its early stages. Extensive stage SCLC is when the tumor exceeds one side of the chest and distant lymph node and bloodstream metastases have occurred. It is an advanced stage of SCLC.
2. Life expectancy
Extensive stage SCLC is difficult to cure completely. The median survival of patients is 6-12 months, with a reported 2-year survival rate of 5.2% to 19.5%.
3. Treatment options
Treatment principles: Currently, the main treatments for SCLC are chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Systemic chemotherapy is the mainstay of treatment for extensive stage SCLC, and surgery is generally not considered. On the basis of systemic treatment, physicians may do radiotherapy to localized lesions with the aim of shrinking the lesions, reducing symptoms, prolonging survival, and improving quality of life.
Treatment of patients with refractory relapses: SCLC is usually not amenable to targeted therapy. After first-line therapy (i.e., standard therapy used first), if the disease has progressed, chemotherapy can be continued with a different regimen, and physicians may also try immunotherapy (e.g., the newly released PD-1 inhibitor nabumab), but more evidence needs to be accumulated on the efficacy of immunotherapy for SCLC. If there is an opportunity to join a new drug clinical trial, we recommend that you actively consider it.