Living With Lung Cancer As A Chronic Disease

Altogether lung diseases accounted for more than 1 million deaths in the u s.

Living with lung cancer as a chronic disease.

Early detection with routine low dose ct screening in at risk patients along with improved surgical pharmacologic and radiation therapies have improved the outlook for nsclc patients. Lung cancers are usually grouped into two main types called small cell and non small cell. Chronic cancer is cancer that cannot be cured but that ongoing treatment also called extended treatment can control for months or years. When taking a drink he would feel discomfort in his chest.

While living with cancer indefinitely is not. As with other chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis or type 1 diabetes the goal of extended treatment for cancer is to help patients live as well as possible for as long as possible. Clean scans are almost always temporary and new recurrences may be harder to treat than the original tumors in part because cancer cells continue to mutate. Survival is extended when the disease is detected early but for many patients even advanced lung cancer has become a chronic disease.

This emergency room physician attributes new research in detection along with new treatments are moving towards this reality. These types of lung cancer grow differently and are treated differently. Lung cancer as a chronic disease the process of treating advanced lung cancer like a chronic disease is an ever shifting journey of discovery and trepidation. In 2005 then 49 year old michael weitz was having difficulty swallowing.