Lung Cancer Experts
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Lung cancer can make you feel scared and anxious. Going through lung cancer treatment is challenging, too. You want the cancer to go away. You also don't want your whole life undone by surgery and chemo.
We've been treating lung cancer for a long time. Our treatment options include innovations that take out tumors as easily as possible. And we have supportive teams to stay by your side through the journey.
If you have lung cancer, we're here to help you find a way forward.
Lung Cancer Treatment at UVA Health
Our experts offer the latest tools in diagnosing and treating lung cancer.
UVA Health is the first in the region to offer a lung biopsy that is robotically assisted. Known as Ion, this system helps doctors reach very tiny nodules in far corners of the lungs that were once unreachable.
For you, this means a better chance of a diagnosis and a sooner start to lifesaving lung cancer treatment.
These include:
- TomoTherapy - safe and painless, this best-in-class radiation avoids healthy tissue
- BiTE therapy for small cell lung cancer
- Lung cancer surgery
Learn more about your options for lung cancer treatments.
Top-Rated Lung Cancer Care
We have one of the largest lung cancer clinics in the region. We also earned the top rating — 3 stars — for our quality outcomes. Only about 10 programs nationwide receive this top rating from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
U.S. News & World Report ranks our lung cancer surgery as high-performing — the highest rating possible. That means our lung cancer services are some of the best in the nation.
Lung cancers we treat include:
- Lung nodules
- Malignant mesothelioma
- Non-small cell lung cancer
- Small-cell lung cancer
- Thymoma and thymic carcinoma
- Neuroendocrine cancers of the lung
Linda Martin, MD, Talks Lung Cancer Treatments
Linda Martin, MD, treats patients with lung cancer. Here she discusses treatment options, depending on the cancer stage.
When a patients referred to me for a new diagnosis of lung cancer, our typical approach is to first define the situation from a cancer standpoint. What is the stage of cancer, what are the treatment options for that stage of cancer, and then to take that and individualize it for that person and look and their heart and lung function, their age, their other health problems, and make sure that the treatment were recommending actually would work for that patient. And a lot of times we do have to adjust our treatment plans. Lung cancer patients tend to be a bit older and have a lot of other medical problems so we try to tailor it in those two ways. Options for treating lung cancer, it all varies tremendously depending on how advanced the cancer is. So, the earliest stages of cancers, most often were going to recommend an operation to remove the cancer. For an early stage tumor, that would be the entire treatment. If it's an early stage tumor but their in really relatively poor health, their wheelchair bound or have oxygen requirements, things like that, then sometimes we'll look at a treatment that uses radiation instead of surgery, and that's something that we would coordinate with our multidisciplinary team of doctors to come up with the best approach. If it's a more advanced cancer, then it's often a combination of surgery as well as chemotherapy and the sequence of that could vary depending on the patient or the other circumstances. The size of the tumor, whether there's lymph nodes involved and things like that.
Support in Every Direction
Getting through lung cancer isn't easy. It means finding health and new ways of living. We have a team ready to help you be the best version of yourself as you journey to healing.
Peer Support
The Cancer Peer Support Program connects survivors and current patients. Trained cancer survivors share their experiences and insights to help those going through treatment. We also welcome caregivers to participate.
Want to give or receive peer support? Fill out the peer support interest form.
Quitting Smoking
A lung cancer diagnosis doesn't mean it's easy to quit smoking or chewing tobacco. Learn about our free program for helping you quit.
Get Screened for Lung Cancer
Worried about lung cancer? Are you or were you a heavy smoker? If you qualify, you can get screened for lung cancer. The earlier we catch it, the better our chances of curing it.
Your Lung Cancer Team
Your team of lung cancer experts work together to make a plan for you. The team includes specialists in cancer, lung care, radiology, and surgery. We ground our care in research, as we work to discover new ways to find and treat cancer in the lungs.