Can you survive lung cancer

Health Tools. Lung Cancer. Reviewed: April 2, Medically Reviewed. Some possible causes for the lower death rates include: Game-Changing Treatment Options In the past, all patients with lung cancer received a chemotherapy regimen that rarely cured the disease.

Lung cancer mainly affects older people. It's rare in people younger than More than 4 out of 10 people diagnosed with lung cancer in the UK are aged 75 and older. This is because smoking involves regularly inhaling a number of different toxic substances. Treatment depends on the type of mutation the cancer has, how far it's spread and how good your general health is.

If the condition is diagnosed early and the cancerous cells are confined to a small area, surgery to remove the affected area of lung may be recommended.

If surgery is unsuitable due to your general health, radiotherapy to destroy the cancerous cells may be recommended instead. Survival rates are grouped based on how far the cancer has spread. But other factors, such as the subtype of NSCLC , gene changes in the cancer cells , your age and overall health, and how well the cancer responds to treatment, can also affect your outlook. Treatments have improved over time, and these numbers are based on people who were diagnosed and treated at least five years earlier.

Early palliative care for people with advanced lung cancer improves outcomes. People with lung cancer who receive palliative or supportive care as part of their treatment are shown to be more satisfied with their treatment, have better symptom management, and live longer. Palliative care is a plan that prevents and treats suffering and addresses the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs that are unique to each patient.

Palliative care gives patients control of their care by giving them the opportunity to tell doctors and nurses what kind of treatment they want or may not want to receive. Lung cancer is tough, but we are making headway through discoveries from clinical trials. We have made tremendous advances in our understanding of cancer biology. These gains have a direct impact on people with cancer. Read other blog posts about recent research on lung cancer. The lung cancer community is growing.

Many people have been touched by lung cancer. It affects more than , Americans every year. There are lots of active support groups for patients and family caregivers, so no one has to face a lung cancer diagnosis alone. Share your thoughts on this blog post on Cancer. Net's Facebook and Twitter. The Cancer.