Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer

Chemotherapy for lung cancer is anti-cancer medicine, usually given through an IV, that travels through your body and kills cancer cells. It is one of the most widely used approaches to lung cancer treatment and has applications in every stage of lung cancer.

How Chemotherapy Treatment Is Used for Lung Cancer

If lung cancer is detected in its early stages, your doctor may recommend surgery to remove the tumors. Even when your doctor recommends surgery, you may also receive chemotherapy. This can happen before your operation to make the tumors easier to operate on, or after the operation to kill any cancer cells left behind.

In the later stages of lung cancer, surgery might not be an option. Instead, you may receive a combination of other therapies, including chemotherapy, to treat your lung cancer. Other treatments you may receive in combination with chemo for lung cancer include immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and radiation therapy.

In all cases, your Mass General Cancer Center multidisciplinary team of lung cancer specialists will put together a comprehensive treatment plan tailored to you.

What to Expect with Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer

If you've been diagnosed with lung cancer, chemotherapy may be part of your treatment plan. Knowing what to expect can help make the process easier.

Side Effects of Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer

Chemotherapy is intended to kill cancer cells, but it may also cause some damage to other tissues in the body, which can lead to side effects. It's common to feel sick when you take chemotherapy for lung cancer. Other common side effects of chemotherapy for lung cancer include:

• Fatigue
• Feeling weak
• Shortness of breath
• Loss of appetite
• Loss of taste
• Difficulty swallowing
• Hair loss
• Constipation

Success Rate of Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer

Chemotherapy is used in many treatment plans, in combination with other treatment options, and can be used at every stage of the disease, so it's hard to generalize about its success rate. In advanced cases (such as extensive SCLC or stage 4 NSCLC), chemotherapy for lung cancer is usually palliative. That means it improves quality of life, reduces symptoms, and may slow the spread of the disease, but it can't provide a cure.