Choosing the right treatment plan is the key for advanced lung cancer

The patient, Wang Wenyan, a Beijing native, was 59 years old when she became ill. She began to experience dull pain in the right upper abdomen in March 2011 without obvious cause. The pain gradually worsened, accompanied by a series of symptoms such as loss of appetite, weight loss, low fever, cough, and dizziness.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the family accompanied her to the hospital. The diagnosis showed that the patient had mass in the right lung, obstructive pneumonia, bilateral adrenal gland mass, and liver mass. The clinical and physical and chemical diagnosis was lung cancer with liver, adrenal gland and intracranial metastasis. After learning about the situation, it was found that Wang Wenyan had a 15-year history of hypertension and had no other bad habits such as smoking and drinking.

The hospital then developed a detailed treatment plan for her, first giving her anti-infection treatment and supportive treatment. After the infection was controlled, she was given whole cranial radiotherapy in April. Because her family refused systemic chemotherapy and liver interventional treatment, they requested "gefitinib" targeted treatment. So Ms. Wang started taking this drug after the radiotherapy ended in May last year.

After taking the medicine for 3 months, the patient's chest right lung lesions shrank, and the liver lesions also shrank slightly. The head MRI showed that the lesions shrank significantly. After 6 months, the follow-up examination showed that the lung lesions were stable, the intracranial lesions were stable, but the liver lesions showed signs of progression. Another examination in January 2012 found that the lesions in the liver had progressed significantly. After ideological work, the family agreed to chemotherapy.

After nearly three months of treatment, the patient's liver metastasis continued to progress, and he developed a large amount of ascites, systemic edema combined with lung infection, fever, vomiting, and inability to eat. Eventually, his family gave up treatment, and it was learned that the patient died of systemic failure a few months later.

When patients are hospitalized, they should cooperate with the treatment plan formulated by the hospital. If family members act on their own and blindly insist, it may take the patient's life. The story of patient Wang Wenyan proves this point. It was possible to achieve better treatment results, but due to the non-cooperation of family members, it ultimately led to Wang Wenyan's tragedy.