Complementary Therapies

In addition to conventional medical treatment, you may wish to try complementary therapies to help you manage pain and improve your quality of life.

• Acupuncture

• Herbs

• Biofeedback

• Meditation

• Yoga

• Guided imagery

• Vitamins and nutritional supplements

Before you try any of these therapies, discuss their possible benefits and side effects with your doctor. Let him or her know if you are already using any such therapies. For more information, see the topic Complementary Medicine.

What To Think About

If surgery is part of your treatment, you also may be given radiation therapy or chemotherapy before surgery or after surgery to try to kill any cancer cells that may remain. Radiation or chemotherapy may be given before or after surgery when only microscopic areas of cancer may still be present. In some studies, people who receive radiation or chemotherapy after they had surgery to remove non-small cell lung cancer have been found to live longer, but other studies have shown little or no increase.

Most treatments for lung cancer cause some side effects. Which side effects you experience will depend on the type of treatment used and your age and overall health. Your doctor can talk to you about your treatment choices and the side effects related to each treatment.

Side effects of chemotherapy

Side effects of radiation therapy

Side effects of surgery

Clinical trials

If standard treatments are not effective or are causing more side effects than desired, you may want to consider being part of a clinical trial. These trials study new or different ways to treat cancer.

Palliative care

As your cancer gets worse, you may want to think about palliative care. Palliative care is a kind of care for people who have illnesses that do not go away and often get worse over time. It is different than care to cure your illness, called curative treatment. Palliative care focuses on improving your quality of life not just in your body but also in your mind and spirit. Some people combine palliative care with curative care.

Some treatments for advanced-stage lung cancer are considered palliative care. These treatments cannot cure your cancer, but they can control your symptoms, reduce your pain, and make you feel more comfortable. They include:

• Radiation therapy.

• Medicines, including chemotherapy.

• Therapies such as radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, or cryoablation that can destroy cancer cells without major surgery.

• Complementary medicine.

In addition to helping your body feel better, palliative care can help you feel better emotionally and spiritually. Talking with a palliative care provider may help you cope with your feelings about living with a long-term illness. It may also help your loved ones better understand your illness and how to support you. Or it could help you make future plans about your health and your medical care.

If you are interested in palliative care, talk to your doctor. He or she may be able to manage your care or refer you to a doctor who specializes in this type of care.

End-of-life issues

If you have advanced-stage cancer, you may choose not to have treatment because the time, costs, and side effects of treatment may be greater than the benefits. Making the decision about when to stop medical treatment aimed at prolonging life and shift the focus to end-of-life care can be difficult.