Surviving Lung Cancer

Reported October 2005

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Each year, 170,000 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer. Surgery to remove a lung tumor can be tough on patients and require them to stay in the hospital for up to a week. Now, a new surgery offers lung cancer patients a less painful recovery with the same success as the old procedure.

Walter Brossok, an ex-lung cancer patient, has 83 years worth of memories to tell his granddaughter about and is thankful he's alive to do it. A few months ago doctors told him he had lung cancer, but he was determined to beat it. "So, I have lung cancer. I'm going to get rid of it as soon as I can," he says.

Brossok was able to beat the cancer with a new type of surgery. Doctors told him recovery would be quick. "From lung cancer, you're going to be out of here the next day ... One day in the hospital bed, and then you're gone? I figured they're pulling my leg," Brossok says.

Thoracic surgeon Allan Pickens, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says most patients react the same way. "It is traditionally done through an open thoracotamy incision that is larger, involves splitting more muscle and actually spreading the ribs." But the new procedure -- called thorascopic lobectomy -- allows doctors to make three small incisions and use special instruments to reach the lungs. A camera lets them see the tumor and remove it with a bag, preventing the cancer from spreading.

"We don't have to make the larger incision. We don't spread the ribs at all, and patients have a shorter recovery time," Dr. Pickens says. After just one day, Brossok went home. He says, "I don't pray to God for anything ... He's got enough on his mind. When something good happens, like this, I thank God."

Candidates for the new surgery are patients with stage one or stage two lung cancer that has not spread to any other parts of the body.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

For more info on the thorascopic lobectomy procedure, please contact:

Cancer AnswerLine
(800) 865-1125
http://www.mcancer.org

For lung cancer information, please contact:
http://www.lungcancer.org





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