While the former presenter of the 1 p.m. news from TF1 Jean-Pierre Pernaut has just announced that he has lung cancer, Why doctor offers you, with the help of the new collective “Together we lungs”, a series to know everything about this disease. Today, focus on its treatments, which have progressed enormously in recent years.
- With the desire to improve patient care through early detection of lung cancer, the collective “Together we lungs” was newly formed.
- Its ambition is to eliminate lung cancer as a cause of death.
To treat lung cancer, the therapeutic strategy is adapted to each case. It depends on the location of the tumor, its resectability, the stage of the disease, the histological type of cancer and, now, the presence or not of a molecular alteration and the expression or not of a particular protein. on the surface of tumor cells. These characteristics are determined during the diagnostic work-up.
The diagnostic assessment is based on a clinical examination, a chest X-ray, a chest CT scan and a biopsy. The other factors also taken into account in the treatment decision are as follows: the patient’s age, his medical and surgical history, his overall state of health, any contraindications to certain treatments and the wishes expressed by the patient.
Targeted therapies
Several treatments exist to cure lung cancer: surgery,has radiotherapy, conventional chemotherapy, targeted therapies and specific immunotherapies.”They don’t have the same mode of action. explains the Together We Lungs collective.
Less than 10 years ago, targeted therapies appeared for NSCLC (Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer). Unlike conventional chemotherapies which act on all dividing cells, targeted therapies will block a growth mechanism specific to cancer cells. Thanks to this, doctors produce a more targeted action on cancer cells with less effect on other cells in the body. “But not all patients can benefit from these therapies. The tumor must have certain specific mutations of the EGFR type (~10 to 12% of NSCLC) or the ALK type translocation (5% of NSCLC) for the treatments to be able to be effective”, say the experts.
Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy was made available in France in 2015 for lung cancer. “In less than five years, immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of bronchopulmonary cancer. The mechanisms used by tumor cells to deceive the vigilance of the immune system are better understood.” summarize health professionals. We can now partially block them, either at the level of tumor cells, or at the level of certain cells of the immune system (lymphocytes and dendritic cells). “The main compounds used today are anti-PD1 (expressed in immune cells) or anti-PDL1 (expressed in tumors)”, concludes the collective Together we lungs.
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