Treatment options for advanced lung cancer

  In recent years, cancer has become the number one killer of human beings, and lung cancer has risen to the first place. With the continuous deterioration of living environment, especially the atmospheric environment, the incidence of lung cancer will increase year by year. Although a lot of human and financial resources have been invested in lung cancer research worldwide, and certain results have been achieved in some aspects and certain fields, it is generally unsatisfactory. For example, most lung cancers are diagnosed to be locally advanced or late, which misses the opportunity of radical surgery, and most of the results of blindly choosing radiotherapy and chemotherapy are not very satisfactory and the survival period is greatly limited. So, how to reasonably choose an effective treatment plan?  To clarify the pathological type and clinical stage is the key to choose a reasonable treatment plan. The treatment plans for different types of lung cancer are different, and sometimes the differences are great. We usually divide into small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, while non-small cell lung cancer includes squamous carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, large cell carcinoma, etc.  Small cell lung cancer has its own special biological nature, so the treatment is completely different from non-small cell. Small cell lung cancer is generally not advocated for surgical resection, even in the early stage, and the main treatments are chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and most of them can be relieved by radiotherapy. The characteristics of adenocarcinoma and squamous and large cell carcinomas are also not exactly the same, and treatment options differ.  Lung adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma have the characteristic of being prone to distant metastasis and were previously considered to have a poor prognosis. However, in recent years, with the advancement and popularity of molecular targeted therapy research, these song types of lung cancer have again transformed into the ones with the longest survival. It is important to emphasize that this is only a part of the picture, not all lung adenocarcinomas are suitable for targeted therapy, and with the cost of targeted therapy being more expensive, genetic testing is especially important. At this year’s annual meeting of the world’s largest oncology conference, experts emphasized the importance of taking eligible targeted drugs as early as possible to prolong survival.  Squamous carcinoma is mostly related to smoking, mostly occurs in middle-aged and elderly men, mostly of central type, with relatively late metastasis and general sensitivity to radiotherapy. In recent years, we have achieved very satisfactory therapeutic effect by using iodine 125 particle implantation for lung cancer, especially for central type, large masses encircling large bronchial vessels in the hilum, which are difficult to be surgically resected, and according to statistics, none of the 160 patients failed to be treated, and the efficiency rate is 100% according to the evaluation standard of solid tumors, which is worth promoting.