How do surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy treat lung cancer?

Treatments for lung cancer, which is most commonly caused by tobacco smoking, typically involve a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, depending on the patient's health, the cancer type, and the stage of the disease.123

• Surgery: This involves the physical removal of cancerous tissue, ranging from a segment of the lung (segmentectomy) to a lobe (lobectomy) or the entire lung (pneumonectomy). While effective for localized tumors, it may be combined with other therapies to address cells that have spread beyond the surgical site.14
• Radiation Therapy: This uses high-energy beams or implanted radioactive sources to damage the DNA of cancer cells, preventing them from replicating or inducing cell death. It may be used before surgery to shrink tumors or after to destroy remaining tissue.451
• Chemotherapy: This treatment uses chemicals to destroy cancerous cells throughout the body. Because these drugs also affect healthy cells, they can cause side effects similar to those of radiation, such as fatigue and nausea.1

The choice of treatment may also be guided by genetic screening to identify specific mutations that make certain cancers susceptible to targeted drug therapies.1