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Small Cell Lung Cancer Survival

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Our lungs play an essential role in our survival, providing us with the oxygen we need. Without our lungs we will not be able to breathe, therefore killing us. But everyday people forget how important our lungs are and ruin them by, smoking.

In this text I will be talking about SCLC(small cell lung cancer) and not NSCLC (non small cell lung cancer), the two main lung cancers. (according to www.lung.org) SCLC makes up 20% of all lung cancer cases and most associated with smoking. NSCLC makes up the other 80% of lung cancer cases but does not spread as fast as SCLC. NSCLC Comprises of: Adenocarcinoma, Squamous cell carcinoma,Large cell carcinoma.

Smoking is able to ruin our lungs and (according to MayoClinic) other parts of our body …show more content…

(According to http://www.macmillan.org.uk) The way we treat it is using chemotherapy and each treatment is different for each person because each case is a little bit different for each person. The specialist will give you a drug that will either destroy or weaken the cancer cells, but the drug given will depend on if the cancer has spread and the size of the infection. Chemotherapy is mostly used to treat SCLC but is also able to treat NSCLC. To improve the treatment you can have radiotherapy at the same time. This is called chemoradiation. If chemoradiation was not chosen by the patient, he/she will have to complete chemotherapy and after a short break start radiotherapy. Chemoradiation is often used when the cancer locally advanced. Since the procedure requires the patient to go through two treatment in a short time, the patient will have to cope with more side effects. The patient will need to be well enough to handle the side effects as there is not a lot to be done to counteract the side effects. (According to Cancer research UK), Common side effects include: weakness, tiredness, skin sensitivity to sunlight, etc. Occasional side effects include: Loss of fertility, tinnitus, constipation, etc. Rare side effect include: Changes to patient's eyesight, Changes to patient's hearing and second cancers. These are some of the side effects needed to overcome to survive lung cancer if your cancer has advanced a lot. If you went

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