Surgery, whenever possible, is the primary treatment for lung carcinoid tumours. Surgery alone can typically cure a tumour if it hasn’t metastasized. Lung carcinoid tumours can be treated (and possibly cured) through a variety of surgeries. These procedures require general anaesthesia and are usually performed through a small incision in the side of the chest between the ribs (called thoracotomy), says Dr. Sanjoy Mandal, who is considered to be the best surgical oncologist.
Lung Carcinoid Tumour Surgery Types
Pneumonectomy: The complete lung is removed during a pneumonectomy
Lobectomy: It is performed when the entire segment (lobe) of the lungs is removed
Segmentectomy: Also called wedge resection, it involves the removal of a part of the lobe
Sleeve resection: A portion of the large airway is removed during a sleeve resection. Consider a tumour in a large airway to be a stain on the sleeve of a blouse, approximately an inch or two above the wrist. Cutting across the sleeve both above and below the stain and stitching the cuff back onto the shortened sleeve would be the procedure. More lung functions can be retained when this procedure is performed instead of a pneumonectomy.
Any of these operations include the removal of adjacent lymph nodes to check cancer spread.
The sort of procedure your onco surgeon in Kolkata suggests is determined by the size and location of the tumour, as well as the state of your lungs. People with healthier lungs can tolerate the removal of more lung tissues.
When you wake up, you will find one or more tubes inserted into your chest and connected to a specific canister to remove excess fluid and air. Once the fluid outflow and air leak have slowed, the tube(s) will be removed. Depending on the type of surgery performed, you may spend 3-7 days in the hospital following your procedure.
Sampling of Lymph Nodes
Lymph nodes surrounding the lungs are routinely removed during any of these surgeries to check for cancer spread. This is crucial because, by the time the carcinoid is discovered, it may have migrated to lymph nodes. If the cancerous lymph nodes are not removed, the carcinoid tumour will spread even farther to other organs. If this occurs, surgical treatment may no longer be an option for you. Examining your lymph nodes for cancer cells can also give you a sense of how likely it is that cancer will return.
Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery
For some lung cancers, it’s a less invasive cancer treatment in Kolkata. A thin, inflexible tube with a tiny video camera on its end is inserted via a small cut on one side of the chest to allow the surgeon to see within the chest during this procedure. Long instruments are passed through one or two small cuts in the skin to do the same operation that would be performed using an open method (thoracotomy).