Chemoradiation for lung cancer
Chemoradiation is when chemotherapy and radiotherapy are given at the same time. It may be used to treat lung cancer.
What is chemoradiation?
This is when chemotherapy and radiotherapy are given at the same time. Chemoradiation can make treatment more effective. But you usually have more side effects, so you need to be well enough to cope with these.
Your cancer doctor or nurse can tell you more about having chemoradiation.
Chemoradiation for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
If the cancer is locally advanced and surgery is not suitable you may have chemoradiation for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). You usually start chemotherapy during the first week of radiotherapy.
Occasionally, people may go on to have surgery 3 to 5 weeks after chemoradiation. But usually you will just have chemoradiation.
Chemoradiation for SCLC
People with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) stage 1 to 3 sometimes have chemoradiation. How you have this may depend on the cancer centre where you are having treatment.
For example, you may have radiotherapy twice a day over 3 weeks, along with chemotherapy. The radiotherapy starts during the first or second cycle of chemotherapy. If this is too much to cope with, you can have radiotherapy once a day over 4 to 6 weeks.
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