Lung Cancer
Minimally invasive options to destroy cancer cells and help you breathe easier.
Your lung cancer may be treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a combination of these. Sometimes, you may need additional treatment to fight lung cancer.
Our Interventional Pulmonology Program uses a number of minimally invasive techniques to destroy cancer cells, stop bleeding, or help you breathe better. These procedures often use bronchoscopy to allow the doctor to see into your airways. This technique uses a long, hollow tube called a bronchoscope with a camera attached at the end.
Our interventional pulmonology treatments fall into two categories:
- Ablation for lung tumors
- Therapeutic techniques for lung cancer
What ablation procedures are used for lung tumors?
Ablation is a procedure that cuts, burns, freezes, clots, or destroys tumors. Our interventional pulmonologists use minimally invasive ablation, which means they don’t use open surgery.
We destroy lung tumors using one or more of the following procedures:
- Argon plasma coagulation (APC)
- Brachytherapy
- Cryotherapy
- Electrocautery
- Fibrin glue application
- Laser therapy
- Microdebridement
- Photodynamic therapy (PDT)
Know the risk factors and symptoms of lung cancer, and your options to fight it.
Lung cancer is the third-most commonly diagnosed cancer (skin cancer is first, with prostate cancer second in men, and breast cancer second in women). But it is the leading cause of cancer death. While a lung cancer diagnosis may be terrifying, our thoracic cancer team is dedicated to providing advanced lung cancer treatment.
This team, along with specialists from the Henry Ford Center for Lung Health, treats more than 500 lung cancer patients every year. We perform complex airway and lung surgeries, including robot-assisted and minimally invasive procedures, in an effort to save as much healthy lung tissue as possible.
We also offer a free Survivorship Workshop Series to provide support and education from the moment of diagnosis through recovery.
What therapeutic techniques are available for lung cancer?
If you have lung cancer or mesothelioma, we sometimes recommend treatments that will not cure your cancer. Instead, these treatments will relieve symptoms and allow you to breathe more easily. These procedures can include:
Airway stenting
Stents are mesh tubes made of metal and/or silicone that we can insert into the airway. The stents act like scaffolding, holding open the passageway so you can breathe easier.
Balloon dilatation
Balloon dilatation uses tiny balloons to open up airways. Once inflated in the passageways of the lungs, these balloons open up the airways into much larger spaces. We can use this technique to help you breathe better, to control severe bleeding in your airways, or to help your doctor remove something blocking an airway.
