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Lung Cancer Treatments
Our lung cancer experts work together as a team to deliver innovative treatment options according to your unique needs. We offer comprehensive support throughout your lung cancer journey.
- Advanced treatment options performed by highly-trained surgical specialists such as video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and robotic surgery that typically offer faster recovery time and fewer complications.
- Comprehensive support services for medical, emotional, and spiritual help as you navigate your lung cancer journey.
- Ease of access with doctors throughout the Bay Area for in-person or virtual visits, through which we connect you with screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care.
- Globally recognized expertise in diagnosing and treating every type and stage of lung cancer, so you can trust us with your cancer care.
- Leading-edge therapies including groundbreaking clinical trials that offer earlier access to the latest lung cancer treatments.
- Team-based approach that brings together leading surgeons, medical oncologists, and radiation oncologists to deliver personalized, comprehensive care.
Connect to Care
Let us help find personalized care options for you and your family.
Interested in an Online Second Opinion?
The Stanford Medicine Online Second Opinion program offers you easy access to our world-class doctors. It’s all done remotely, and you don’t have to visit our hospital or one of our clinics for this service. You don’t even need to leave home!
Visit our online second opinion page to learn more.
Your care team carefully evaluates your unique situation and presents different treatment options so you can make an informed decision. The lung cancer treatment plan you choose may consist of one or a combination of the following:
Surgery is a common treatment for the main types of lung cancer if they present in stages 1 to 3. The goals of lung cancer surgery are to:
- Eliminate the main tumor and involved lymph nodes by lung resection operations that are usually achievable by VATS or robotic surgery
- Relieve symptoms of advanced cancer that has spread (metastasized) to other parts of the body
The type of surgery your team recommends depends on the tumor’s size and other factors. The main types of surgery to remove lung cancer include:
- Wedge resection: This surgery removes a small portion of the lung. Doctors typically use wedge resections to treat the smallest tumors, particularly those that are unlikely to spread.
- Segmentectomy: Your doctor takes out one or more segments of a lobe (part of a lung) while preserving half or more of the lobe.
- Lobectomy: Your doctor takes out an entire lobe to remove the cancer. At Stanford, about 80% of lobectomies are minimally invasive video-assisted thoracic or robotic surgeries (VATS).
- Sleeve lobectomy: Doctors take apart the airway and sometimes the main artery in the lung to remove the lobe. They then reconnect the remaining lobe, artery, and airway.
- Pneumonectomy: Doctors remove the entire lung containing the tumor.
- Other surgery for lung cancer: You may need other types of surgery, such as mediastinoscopy, before your diagnosis or in addition to your lung cancer surgery.
Our thoracic surgeons earned the highest thoracic surgery safety and outcome ratings from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and U.S. News & World Report. You can trust that you receive world-class care.
Cancer medications, also called systemic or medical therapy, work throughout the body to destroy cancer cells or slow their growth. You can receive these anticancer medications as a pill, injection, or intravenous (IV) infusion.
Types of cancer medications for lung cancer include:
Our medical oncology specialists led several important clinical trials that helped develop targeted therapies to treat lung cancers with genetic mutations. This means you receive care from doctors with extensive experience using these medications for complex lung cancers.
Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays to destroy cancer cells. Our radiation oncologists target radiation beams directly to tumors, providing powerful treatment while avoiding damage to healthy tissue nearby.
Radiation oncologists deliver external radiation (external beam therapy) using machines outside the body. Radiation does not cause pain and does not make you radioactive.
Stanford physician-researchers pioneered modern radiation therapies for lung cancer that are now the worldwide standard of care. Types of external radiation therapy for lung cancer include:
- 3D conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT): This technology uses 3D pictures to help doctors target the tumor. Your radiation oncologist can aim radiation beams from different angles to match the tumor’s shape.
- Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT): This treatment is similar to 3D-CRT and allows doctors to modulate (adjust) the amount of radiation from each beam.
- Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) or stereotactic ablative radiation therapy (SABR): This therapy gives intense doses of radiation over a course of five or fewer treatments.
Your doctor may recommend chemotherapy or radiation therapy before surgery to shrink the tumor so that it’s easier to remove. Depending on your condition, chemotherapy or radiation therapy may be helpful after surgery to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back.
Cancer tumors have specific genetic fingerprints. Our doctors identify these fingerprints and use them to select the most effective targeted treatments. A Stanford Medicine thoracic radiation oncologist pioneered genomic profiling from tumor DNA circulating in the blood.
Lung Cancer Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are research studies that evaluate a new medical approach, device, drug, or other treatment. As a Stanford Medicine patient, you may have access to the latest, advanced clinical trials through the Stanford Cancer Institute.
Open trials refer to studies that are currently recruiting participants or that may recruit participants in the near future. Closed trials are not currently enrolling additional patients.
To schedule an appointment with a lung cancer specialist, please call: 650-498-6000