Palliative Care in Lung Cancer

Lung cancer rate in all cancer types is 21% in men and 5 % in women in European Union Countries. Smoking is the most important factor of lung cancer etiology [1]. The rate of Turkey is found 63% in men and 14% in women in 1988. 88.7% of the patients in Turkey have got smoking story. Lung cancer risk increases 3.5 times in passive smoking. Because there are carcinogens in air and they are not filtered; therefore, they are denser on air [2].

The primary care practitioner must maintain a close working relationship with medical and surgical oncologists to help guide patients and families through various treatment options.

In the lung cancer patients, the pain occurred based upon the oncologic period in 77 % percentage. Moreover, it depends on cancer treatment in 19 % percentage and the other effects which are not depending on cancer in 4 %. It is hard to join the analgesic aims if the innovations related to cancer pain control are not heard, the doctors and the other medicine workers are not trained well and if some legal problems exist while finding the drugs which are used in the pain control.

Keywords: Lung cancer, palliative care, pain treatment.