Lung cancer is divided into two types, namely:

- Non-small cell lung cancer, ranging from 80% of all lung cancer patients – Small call lung cancer, around 20% of all lung cancer patients. Small cell lung cancer is divided into two types, namely the limited stage and extensive stage.

Although the number of patients with small cell lung cancer types of lung cancer a little more, but information about small cell lung cancer symptoms and treatments are very important for us to know.

Small cell lung cancer symptoms that often arise are:

- persistent cough. Patients will complain of persistent cough. this cough will eventually interfere with the activities and lives of patients. Coughing will not recover even after getting treatment to relieve cough.

- Shortness of breath Patients will complain of shortness of breath. Shortness of breath is initially mild that patients do not complain, but the longer shortness of breath is more severe, so patients can work or will not work.

- Chest pain small cell lung cancer symptoms are also frequently arises is chest pain. DAA pain management in lung cancer should receive serious attention from a doctor. Chest pain in patients with lung cancer can be very powerful at all; patients can suffer greatly from this chest pain.

Small cell lung cancer Treatments

-          Limited Stage

Chemotherapy (platinum-based regimen) is much more effective for small cell lung cancer than for NSCLC.

The overall initial response rate measured by remission of tumor growth or shrinkage of primary tumor mass, or both, with limited small-cell stage from 60% to 90%. a complete response occurs in 45% to 75% with a long-term complete remission (cure) rate about 20%.

-          Extensive Stage

Systemic chemotherapy results in an overall initial response rate of 60% to 70%, with complete response in 20% to 30%. Unfortunately, complete response rates are temporary (median 4 months), and chemotherapy becomes palliative due to the eventual recurrence of tumor.

The median survival rate ranges from 9 to 12 months.

Palliative care, which helps the gravely ill make the most of the time they have left, provided terminal lung cancer patients with more time to enjoy, a U.S. study found.

The study found that patients who started soon after their diagnosis on palliative care along with usual cancer care lived nearly three months longer than people given only standard cancer care, even though this second group had more chemotherapy.

‘One of the most common misconceptions about palliative care is that it indicates treatment has failed.’— Dr. Vicki Jackson

That’s a big difference. Patients like this typically live less than a year after diagnosis, said study leader Dr. Jennifer Temel, a cancer specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where the study was done.

The results, in Thursday’s new England Journal of Medicine, could affect the care of a lot of people: More than half of lung cancer patients have incurable disease by the time they are diagnosed.

Palliative care involves doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists and even chaplains who specialize in pain control and treating nausea, shortness of breath and other symptoms that affect quality of life. It’s not the same as hospice or comfort care, when doctors think a patient has less than six months to live and treating the illness no longer helps.

The study was one of the best tests yet of palliative care, and the results should ease many fears about starting it soon after diagnosis, doctors say.

“One of the most common misconceptions about palliative care is that it indicates treatment has failed, that it means giving up,” said Dr. Vicki Jackson, acting chief of palliative care at Massachusetts General.

The study involved 151 people newly diagnosed with cancer that had spread beyond the lung.

All received routine cancer care and about half also got palliative care.

Better quality of life

More than half of those on standard care alone received chemo in their last two weeks of life, versus only one-third of the palliative care patients. yet the palliative care group’s median survival was better: more than 11 months versus less than nine months.

Quality of life and physical functioning improved in the palliative care group and worsened in the others. Depression was less than half as common in the palliative care group.

“When people feel better, they’re much more likely to go for their treatment, to get up out of bed, to exercise,” and that affects survival, said Dr. R. Sean Morrison, president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and a doctor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in new York.

Dr. Gail Austin Cooney knows this from personal and professional experience. Cooney, past president of the academy and assistant medical director of the Hospice of Palm Beach County in Florida, used palliative care to cope with a particularly difficult chemo treatment for advanced ovarian cancer in 2008.

“I knew that in order to tolerate the treatment I needed to have my symptoms controlled and be in the best physical and psychological state. I wanted to get all those treatments they told me I wouldn’t be able to finish,” said Cooney, whose cancer is now in remission.

The study shows that palliative care should be a routine part of managing any serious illness rather than “what we do when there is nothing more that we can do,” Amy Kelley and Diane Meier, both doctors at Mount Sinai, wrote in an editorial in the journal.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology and two cancer charities paid for the study. It did not look at the cost of palliative care, which is mostly doctor visits. however, research Morrison has published suggests it can save money by lowering emergency visits, unwanted hospital stays and futile treatments.

Despite the benefits of palliative care to patients and their families, 75 to 85 per cent of the 160,000 Canadians who die from terminal illnesses each year don’t have access to it during the end-of-life stage, according to statistics from a Senate report published in 2000 and the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association.