Several treatment options for small cell lung cancer

In recent years, nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a malignant tumor disease with a high incidence rate. The occurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma brings great harm to patients, and patients must receive symptomatic treatment. I believe everyone also knows that there are many ways to treat nasopharyngeal carcinoma, including drug therapy, surgical treatment, etc. The following will explain to you several treatment options for small cell lung cancer.

Drug treatment

When we use some methods to treat nasopharyngeal carcinoma, we must not interrupt the drug treatment during this period. The effect of drug treatment is very large. Chemotherapy is a treatment method that uses drugs to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy drugs can be taken orally or injected into the body through veins or muscles. Since chemotherapy drugs entering the human body can circulate throughout the body with the blood and kill cancer cells in various parts of the body, this therapy is called systemic chemotherapy. Chemotherapy alone is not the standard treatment for early and middle-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Doctors often use a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat local, middle and late-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Experiments have shown that the combined use of chemotherapy and external radiotherapy can improve the local control rate of advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma and the long-term survival rate of patients. Chemotherapy can also be used to treat recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but its efficacy is not very significant.

Radiation therapy

When treating diseases such as nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a common treatment method now is radiotherapy, which is also a relatively effective method for treating cancer. Radiotherapy is a treatment method that uses high-energy X-rays or other radioactive rays to kill cancer cells and shrink and disappear tumors. Radiotherapy may use external radiation (using cobalt-60 or accelerators outside the body) and intracavitary radiotherapy. Because the nasopharynx is in a special position and there are many important organs and tissues around it, surgery is not an ideal treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Most nasopharyngeal carcinomas are very sensitive to high-energy radiotherapy, and radiotherapy can preserve the structure within the treatment range and is not easy to damage surrounding tissues. Therefore, radiotherapy is a relatively important treatment method for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. External radiotherapy is a more commonly used radiotherapy method.

Surgery

Finally, we can also use surgical treatment at this time. Doctors can remove tumors and cancer cells through surgery. Because the nasopharynx is closely connected to many other important parts, surgery is not the first choice for treating nasopharyngeal cancer. However, if nasopharyngeal cancer patients cannot undergo radiotherapy, surgical treatment is the only option. If the cancer has metastasized to the neck lymph nodes, the doctor needs to remove the neck lymph nodes and other tissues around the lymph nodes.

Nasopharyngeal cancer brings a lot of harm to patients. Patients must receive symptomatic treatment according to their own condition. At the same time, they must pay attention to daily care and do not ignore dietary issues. Finally, I wish all patients a speedy recovery.