What is the best treatment for lung cancer?

DEPENDS: There are 3 main modalities to treat lung cancer: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. It all depends on stage of disease. It also depends on histology (type) of lung cancer. Oncologist will help in guiding what would be the best treatment in each case.

Depends on the stage: Lung cancer treatment depends on stage. The extent the cancer has spread is described by the stage (1-4). In general: stage 1 cancer is usually best treated by surgery. Stage 2 cancer is usually best treated with surgery and chemotherapy . Treatment of stage 3 cancer is controversial and often involves some combination of chemotherapy radiation and surgery. Stage 4 is treated with chemotherapy.

Depends on stage: In the medically fit individually, the standard of care upfron therapy for stage i -iib nsclc is surgery. For stage iiia either chemotherapy +/- radiation followed by surgery or chemoradiation alone. For stage iiia - iv, therapy is chemotherapy +/- radiation. For early stage lung cancer, surgery can often be done minimally invasively. http://bit.ly/csjsqa.

Depends on type: there are different kind of lung cancers, also they present at different stages ( how advanced). Doctor has to decide based on above info.

Lung cancer: Current literature revealed death from lung cancer in US is about 160,000 a year, nearly haft are women. Two kinds of lung cancer: 1)non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 2) small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Treatment for for stage 1 &2 NSCLC is complete resection of tumor if possible, and chemo to follow if indicated. Stage 3 and 4 chemo and radiation. For SCLC chemotherapy is treatment of choice.