The chemotherapy that is used to treat lung cancer is constantly evolving. As new treatments are discoverd and more effective ways of fighting lung cancer are found, these new treatments are incorporated into the fight against lung cancer.

TRADITIONAL CHEMOTHERAPY: Traditional chemotherapy has been used to treat lung cancer for decades. This is typically a liquid that is dripped slowly into tubing that is connected to a needle that goes to the vein of the person with lung cancer. Traditional chemotherapy is fairly aggressive and unfortunately hurts both the normal blood tissue cells as well as the cancer cells. The goals of traditional chemotherapy, however, is to kill more of the cancer cells than the normal body cells with this therapy.

CHEMOTHERAPY AGENTS: Studies have shown that it is best to use two different chemotherapy drugs at the same time to treat lung cancer. These two different chemotherapy drugs are usually given together on various schedules. Studies were done to see if it might perhaps be possible to get better results against the lung cancer if three chemotherapy drugs were used together instead of two and these studies showed that it was no better to use three drugs instead of two, but it made the person much more sick with side effects. Therefore, the standard therapy at this time is that when traditional chemotherapy is used to treat lung cancer, two chemotherapy drugs are used at the same time. This has been shown to be better than just using one chemotherapy drug or three chemotherapy drugs at the same time.

NEWER CHEMOTHERAPY: The newer chemotherapy agents that are being developed and used these days for the treatment of lung cancer are drugs that do not kill both good and bad cells as the traditional chemotherapy does. These newer drugs do not kill cells at all. What they do is that they interfere with the actual mechanisms that the cancer cell uses to make the cancer, keep it alive and to allow itself to grow. This is a new and promising way to treat lung cancer since it provides therapy that can be taken as a pill and does not require a needle dripping fluid into a vein. There are two main newer chemotherapy agents which work this way, which are being used more and more these days. Those two agents are a drug called Erlotinib (also called Tarceva) and Nilotinib (also called Iressa). These drugs attack the actual signal that the cancer cell uses to tell the cancer to grow and make more cancer and these drugs do their best to shut off those signals. These newer drugs are fascinating new treatment possibilities in the fight against lung cancer.

All of these principles and concepts are discussed in easy to understand language in the Lung Cancer audio CD available on www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com