Issues of great concern to families of lung cancer patients

  1.What are the current conventional and latest treatments for lung cancer?  At present, the conventional treatments for lung cancer include surgery, radiation therapy (radiotherapy) and chemotherapy (chemotherapy).  Targeted therapy and immunotherapy are the latest treatments for lung cancer.  2.How to prevent lung cancer recurrence (1) Prevent cold and flu. Cold and flu will lower the body’s resistance and lung cancer may take advantage of the opportunity to attack again, and serious cold and flu will cause lung infection, which is also unfavorable to the prevention of lung cancer recurrence.  (2) Quit smoking.  (3) Injecting immune preparations or taking some proprietary Chinese medicines under the advice of doctors to improve the immune status of patients and enhance their resistance to diseases.  (4) Dietary regimen, eat more foods that nourish the mind and replenish the vital energy, such as carp, pork ribs soup, yam, red dates and other foods with high nutritional value. Food is the fundamental source of body and movement. Balanced diet and healthy diet are the main ways to prevent the recurrence of lung cancer.  3.How to monitor the recurrence of lung cancer? What should be done when recurrence occurs?  Regular follow-up and review is the main means to monitor the recurrence of lung cancer.  After surgery or disease control, lung cancer patients need to check tumor index once a month, have an enhanced CT every 3-6 months, and have a head MRI scan plus enhancement and bone scan once every 6-12 months.  For patients surviving with tumor, tumor index should be checked once a month, enhanced CT should be done every 2~3 months, and MRI of the head with enhancement and bone scan should be done once every 3~6 months.  Once lung cancer recurrence occurs, please seek professional medical consultation as soon as possible.  4.How can other family members prevent the occurrence of lung cancer?  (1) Quit smoking. Quitting smoking is the main means to prevent the occurrence of lung cancer and avoid inhaling first-hand or second-hand smoke.  (2) Avoid working and living in polluted environment.  (3) Change the way of cooking, use more steaming and less frying, and stay away from kitchen fumes.  (4) Adopt a healthy lifestyle, exercise more, drink more water, go to bed early and wake up early, and keep a good state of mind.  5.New breakthroughs have been made in immunotherapy for lung cancer, are all lung cancer patients suitable for immunotherapy?  The answer is no.  The immunotherapy that most patients are concerned about is actually a very narrow view of immunotherapy, which refers to the treatment with immune checkpoint drugs. There are some predictors of this therapy, such as PD-L1 expression, tumor mutational load, and new tumor antigens.  Currently, the efficacy of immunotherapy and the suitable population are still very limited, and very specialized physicians are needed to select the appropriate efficacy predictors for prediction.