A brief talk about small cell lung cancer

Due to the irrational dietary structure of today's society, the radiation and pollution of various chemical elements, more and more people are suffering from small cell lung cancer. Many patients with small cell lung cancer want to know why they suffer from this disease. Today we will briefly talk about the knowledge of small cell lung cancer.

Small cell lung cancer is one of the basic types of lung cancer. It belongs to undifferentiated cancer and is a highly malignant tumor. Compared with other types of lung cancer, small cell lung cancer has a shorter symptom period before diagnosis and a shorter survival period after diagnosis. If not treated, the median survival period of patients with small cell lung cancer from diagnosis is less than three months, and the two-year survival rate is less than 1%. Small cell carcinoma accounts for about 20% of all types of lung cancer. The onset age is relatively young, more common in men, and most patients have a history of smoking. It usually originates from larger bronchi, and most are central lung cancers. Small cell carcinoma has a low degree of differentiation, grows rapidly, and has early lymphatic metastasis and invasion of blood vessels through the blood vessels to widely metastasize to distant organs and tissues in the body. Therefore, among all types of lung cancer, small cell carcinoma has the worst prognosis. Small cell carcinoma is highly sensitive to radiotherapy and/or anticancer drug treatment. Surgery is generally not recommended for treatment, and systemic chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the main treatments. This type of lung cancer has a high degree of malignancy and a poor prognosis. Patients with fever and cough are common symptoms of lung cancer. Headaches should be alert to brain metastasis, and cranial CT examinations are strongly recommended.

Small cell lung cancer is divided into limited stage and extensive stage. Most small cell lung cancers are already in the extensive stage when diagnosed, and the limited stage accounts for up to one-third. For patients with small cell lung cancer, Western medicine mainly uses chemotherapy, mainly systemic chemotherapy, combined with radiotherapy; Chinese medicine treats this disease mainly based on syndrome differentiation and treatment, often combined with chemotherapy.

The main method for treating small cell lung cancer is chemotherapy. The efficacy of chemotherapy mostly appears within 12 weeks after the start of treatment, and further increase in efficacy is rarely seen thereafter. Studies have shown that the combination chemotherapy regimen using chemotherapy drugs that are effective for small cell lung cancer has achieved better efficacy and survival rates than single-drug chemotherapy.

Radiotherapy for small cell lung cancer. Since the local recurrence rate of small cell lung cancer in the chest is high when treated with chemotherapy alone, it is advocated to supplement chemotherapy with radiotherapy of the primary lesion in the chest to improve the local control rate of intrathoracic tumors.

The TCM treatment for small cell lung cancer mainly focuses on the combination of Chinese and Western medicine, and is mostly carried out in conjunction with chemotherapy or radiotherapy to eliminate the common side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The traditional Chinese medicines with relatively ideal effects reported in clinical reports include Shenlian Granules, Yifei Qinghua Paste, Qingfei Sanjie Pills, etc.

It is generally believed that all patients diagnosed with lung cancer by histology, cytology or clinical diagnosis are suitable for surgery as long as the disease is before stage II and there are no absolute contraindications. However, due to the high malignancy and early metastasis of small cell lung cancer, it is generally considered not suitable for surgical treatment.