Surgery An Option For Advanced Lung Cancer

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Lung cancer surgery prolongs survival without progression of the cancer, but does not dramatically improve overall survival, U.S. researchers found. Lead author Dr. Kathy Albain of Loyola University Health System's Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center and colleagues said patients who did appear to have a major benefit from surgery were those in whom a section of the lung was removed, rather than the entire lung. The study included patients with non-small cell cancer, which accounts for about 80 percent of all lung cancers. The patients had stage III cancer, in which the cancer had spread to lymph nodes in the center of the chest. This type of stage III cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all non-sma...