Lung and Thoracic Cancer

• Low dose CT scan – The U.S. Task Force recently recommended annual low-dose CT scans for people with current, or former, significant smoking histories.
• PET, MRI and CT scans
• Fiberoptic Bronchoscopy – a test to view the airways using a bronchoscope passed through the mouth or nose through the windpipe (trachea) and into the lungs
• Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS) guided fine needle aspiration biopsy of mediastinal nodes – offers a less invasive alternative for sampling of the mediastinal nodes
• Transesophageal Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) – a high-frequency ultrasound transducer which is incorporated into the tip of an endcoscope to provide high-resolution images; may involve fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of suspected malignancies.
• Mediastinocopy – a surgical procedure to examine the inside of the upper chest between, and in front, of the lungs
• CT guided needle biopsy – a procedure by which the physician uses a very thin needle and syringe to withdraw a tissue or fluid specimen from an organ or suspected tumor mass.  The needle is guided while being viewed by the physician on a computer tomography (CT) scan.
• Molecular profiling – provides a molecular portrait of an individual cancer allowing clinicians to determine the origin of the cancer, its potential for metastasis, its specific drug responsiveness and the probability of its recurrence.

Surgery is most commonly performed as a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. To remove the tumors that are growing in the lung or chest wall, your surgeon may perform:

• Wedge resection (segmentectomy): the surgeon removes a small wedge-shaped piece of the lung that contains the cancer and a small amount of healthy tissue around the cancer
• Lobectomy: the surgeon removes the entire lobe of your lung that contains the cancer
• Pneumonectomy: the surgeon removes the entire lung that contains the cancer

Surgical oncology services at NGMC provide the very latest in minimally invasive techniques.  Click here to learn more about these techniques.

Our Radiation Therapy department offers the latest, state-of-the-art treatment technologies including therapies which deliver maximum doses of radiation with a decreased risk of side effects.  

Chemotherapy uses drugs to destroy cancer cells and tumors in the body. Depending on which type of cancer you have, you may have chemotherapy before or after surgery.

NGMC’s Cancer Services program offers a modern, comfortable infusion suite where patients can receive their chemotherapy treatments. Chemotherapy is also offered by our medical oncologists in their offices.

While receiving your treatment, you may want to visit with your family and friends who accompany you, read or watch television. Our care team will work to make you as comfortable as possible during your treatments.