Dr. Vokes on Multimodality Therapy for Lung Cancer

Everett E. Vokes, MD, Giant of Cancer Care in the Head and Neck Cancer Category, John E. Ultmann Professor of Medicine and Radiation Oncology, Physician-in-Chief, University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences, discusses multimodality therapy for patients with lung cancer.

At the 14th Annual International Lung Cancer Congress held from July 25-27, 2013, in Huntington Beach, CA, several sessions focused on the best way to administer multimodality therapy.

In the early staging work for a patient with lung cancer, surgeons and pulmonologists are very engaged. Typically, pulmonologists will help physicians to obtain a proper biopsy in tissue that is difficult to reach and guide a proper diagnosis. If the patient's tumor is particularly small, pulmonologists can help to treat tumors right away. Sometimes, a patient's physician will work with a radiation oncologist to administer a modern technique (stereotactic radiation) to avoid surgery.

Stereotactic radiation ablation is a very intensive form of radiation and has demonstrated increasingly exciting results. Though stereotactic radiation ablation is currently used to treat patients with inoperable states due to comorbidities or age, it may become the standard in other spaces as the administration is perfected.