Treatments like Palliative Procedures are only done when lung cancer patient can’t have surgery; this is because patient’s lungs functioning is reduced, or have other serious medical problems, or cancer spread too far to remove. These treatments not fully cure cancer but relieve symptoms. With this treatment you may also get radiation therapy.
These treatments are done according to lung cancer symptoms at early stage. Following are some explained:
Windpipe Blockage Relieve Treatment: If patient having a problem with berating or have shortness of breath, tumor is removed from windpipe by bronchoscope or destroying most of it with a laser. In some cases stent is placed in windpipe after treatment to help keep it open.
Fluid Buildup Relieve Treatment: Sometime (very rear) fluid is build up inside the chest and produce pressure on lungs or producing breathing problem. To remove this fluid a hollow needle is put through skin into the fluid occurred area to remove the fluid. This is called thoracentesis. This procedure helps patients in breathing immediately. But fluid can build up quickly, for this doctor do some other treatments; these are:
Pleurodesis: The procedure to remove fluid and keep it coming back is Pleurodesis. In this, a small cut is made up over the chest skin and a hollow tube is inserted to remove fluid. After removing fluid completely doctor inserts talc or a drug such as doxycycline or a chemotherapy drug, which stick together the linings of the lung and chest wall; and sealing the space and limiting further fluid buildup. Something a tube is inserted for a day or two to drain any new build up fluid.
Catheter Placement: Another way to control fluid is Catheter Placement. In this a thin flexible tube (called catheter) is instead into a chest through small cut and other end is left outside of body to attached to a bottle to allow the fluid to drain out completely. This procedure is done in hospital.
Treatment For Relieve In Liver Metastases Symptoms: If the tumor is spread to liver (called Liver Metastases), they are treated to relieve in symptoms. If 1 or 2 tumors in liver they are treated by surgery, but if they are not few or surgery is not possible then some other procedure may be used.
Ablation: In this, tumor is destroyed not remove and generally this is done for not large tumors. This treatment is best for tumors which are not more than 2 cms. Ablation techniques are:
Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA): In this technique a thin needle like probe is placed through the skin and into the tumor with the help of ultrasound or CT scan, when this needle reaches inside of tumor a high-frequency current is releases to destroys the tumor.
Ethanol (Alcohol) Ablation: In this technique a concentrated alcohol directly injected into tumor with the help of needle and CT scans both. It’s also called percutaneous ethanol injection.
Microwave Thermotherapy: In this technique microwaves are used to heat and destroy tumor.
Cryosurgery: Also called cryotherapy; In this technique a very cold gas is passed through probe to freeze and destroy tumor. This technique is used to treat large tumors.
Embolization:
Arterial Embolization: This treatment is done for large tumors up to about 5 cm or 2 inches across. In this technique blood flow is reduced to the infected live by blocking the branch of the hepatic artery feeding. This is done by injecting materials that plug up the artery. This technique also called transarterial embolization or TAE.
Radioembolization: In this technique small radioactive beads are injected into the hepatic artery; after that beads travel towards the tumor and give off small amounts of radiation only at the tumor.