wjjlyj
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Is neuroendocrine lung cancer sclc, nsclc or something else? Can this type of cancer go into partial remission? Complete remission? Are there oncologists who specialize in this type of cancer? Is immunotherapy a possibility? Thank you.
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Reply # - July 31, 2014, 03:57 PM
Reply To: Neuroendocrine lung cancer
Hi wjjlyj,
Neuroendocrine lung cancer includes a range of cancer types, some of which are more like SCLC, some like NSCLC and some in between. As Dr. West has written:
"[C]ancers can look different in different areas of the same tumor, and SCLC and atypical carcinoid are part of the same spectrum of neuroendocrine lung cancer that also includes large cell neuroendocrine carcinomas. I have had a couple of patients with a combination of small cell and neuroendocrine large cell NSCLC or carcinoid.
In truth, there isn’t a significant difference in treatment between NSCLC and SCLC, particularly if we’re talking about SCLC vs. neuroendocrine NSCLC or carcinoid. The main treatments for SCLC are also fine treatments for NSCLC, and just about all of the NSCLC drugs also have some potential value in SCLC." - http://cancergrace.org/topic/dx-changed-from-sclc-to-atypical-carcinoid…
Thoracic oncologists don't usually use the term "remission", preferring instead to describe either a "partial response" (in which treatment produces some tumor shrinkage) and "complete response" (in which tumors are no longer detectable on scans). Treatment for any kind of lung cancer can produce these results.
And immunotherapy is being tested in a wide variety of types of lung cancer.
JimC
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Reply # - July 31, 2014, 10:52 PM
Reply To: Neuroendocrine lung cancer
Here's a general discussion of neuroendocrine carcinomas, of which small cell lung cancer is one, and there's also large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma:
http://cancergrace.org/lung/2007/03/22/lcnec-tumors/
Small cell lung cancer is typically very responsive to at least early chemotherapy (less so if it relapses), while large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma is less responses, but you can definitely see good responses.
We haven't seen enough study of immunotherapy for lung cancer to say reliably which patients respond better or worse. However, it hasn't really been studied yet in small cell lung cancer, in part because it tends to be a fast-growing cancer, and it can take a long time to see a good response to immunotherapy, even when it works well.
Good luck.
-Dr. West