Extensive Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer Stage 3 - 1290844

Hi Joanne,

Welcome to GRACE. I am very sorry to hear of your mum's diagnosis. A cancer diagnosis always creates a host of questions, and we'll try to help answer those for you.

First, it's unusual to hear a small cell lung cancer described as extensive stage and stage III. SCLC staging is usually divided into just two groupings - limited stage and extensive stage. Extensive stage is essentially the equivalent of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, in which the cancer has spread outside the lung to locations such as the liver, brain, bones or adrenal glands. Each of these advanced stages are incurable, but treatable, with the aim to increase both the duration and quality of life. Treatment tends to consist solely of chemotherapy.

Limited stage SCLC is usually not subdivided into stage I, II or III; it is simply any SCLC that has not spread distantly (beyond the lung and some neighboring lymph nodes). Some patients are curable at this stage, often using a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.

It may help to read through Dr. Gadgeel's introductory posts on small cell lung cancer:

http://cancergrace.org/lung/2010/08/03/intro-to-sclcref-lib/
http://cancergrace.org/lung/2010/08/07/treatment-of-small-cell-lung-can…

If you have further questions after reading these posts, please let us know.

In the meantime, we will hope that your mum has a very good and sustained response to treatment.

JimC
Forum moderator