In 1994, there will be 172,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States. Small cell lung cancer accounts for about a quarter of all lung cancer cases. Also called oat cell carcinoma of the lung, it has the most rapid clinical course of any type of lung cancer, with average survival from diagnosis of only several months without treatment. Compared with other types of lung cancer, small cell carcinoma has a greater tendency to have spread widely by the time of diagnosis, but is more responsive to treatment with chemotherapy and radiation than are the other types of lung cancer.
Seventy percent of patients with small cell carcinoma of the lung have distant metastases at the time of diagnosis. With modern staging procedures, the areas of spread can be discovered in two-thirds of these patients.
Small cell cancer is not always confined to the lung. Occasionally it may occur in other organs such as the esophagus or cervix and sometimes may occur without the primary site of origin being identified. The management of these tumors will be addressed in sections concerning those organs; chemotherapy remains the fundamental basic treatment.
