Page 30 - Inspire

The decision to have a vaccination is a personal one.
It may be based on weighing up the benefits and risks to
the individual, their family and the broader community.
However, there is evidence that the vaccine can reduce
the risk of severe illness and hospitalisation if someone
is exposed to the virus.

You may be asked about your current treatment and
any severe allergies you may have. It’s recommended you
have your vaccination before treatments such as
immunotherapy. If you have any concerns or questions
please check with your healthcare team.

Many people have no significant reaction to the
vaccination apart from some tenderness in the arm
around the site of the injection. Others have mild flu-like
symptoms. If you have any worrying or long-lasting
reactions, please tell your medical team. Your chest surgeon will use your full lung
function test results to try to calculate what
impact losing more of your lung will have on
your breathing.

It may be worth considering a non-surgical
approach to treating the tumour in the other lung.

I’m sure the consultant clinical oncologist in
There’s now several mutations or molecular your team would be keen to talk to you about
markers within an individual cancer cell that help stereotactic radiotherapy which could be offered
your oncologist determine the best drug treatment with curative intent.
for you.

This has dramatically improved lung cancer treatment
over the past 10 years. Prior to that, everyone with
non-small cell lung cancer was treated the same.

There’s even better news too. More drugs are being
developed that may be active in many of the mutations
and markers that we have now identified. These are
called targeted therapies.