Physician Referral Online

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of Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Physician Referral Online
Using your own criteria, you can request information from a database of more than 1,000 area physicians who have registered to participate.

Request an appointment
We would be happy to assist you in scheduling an appointment with a member of the hospital's medical staff. Use the link above or call:

203-688-2000
or toll free
1-888-700-6543
to talk with a referral coordinator.

Yale-New Haven was recognized this year by U.S. News & World Report for its cancer services.

Study gives more options to patients with lung cancer

Lung cancer is the number 1 cancer killer of both men and women. In fact, more deaths are due to lung cancer than the next four leading causes of cancer deaths combined (breast, prostate, colon, pancreas). More than 164,000 will die this year. Often, much more media attention is given to advances in breast or prostate cancer, but major advances have occurred in lung cancer as well, such as the ANITA trial.

Lung cancer is not hopeless
Many people have a nihilistic view toward lung cancer, thinking it is hopeless. However, steady improvement in survival has been demonstrated. Even patients with advanced lung cancer who cannot be cured can be treated and have good quality of life, often for years.

When a person is diagnosed with an early-stage lung cancer, the standard of care has been to surgically remove it. Now we know we can achieve even better outcomes by adding chemotherapy after surgery. Chemotherapy used to be given only to patients with more advanced tumors, usually in Stages III or IV.

Chemotherapy helps prolong life
This study is good news in the treatment of lung cancer because it gives patients and their doctors another option to improve survival. Now, after a tumor has been surgically removed, patients are given what is called adjuvant chemotherapy. As the study points out, overall and cancer-free survival is significantly improved with this type of treatment. It is estimated this treatment may prevent about 7,000 U.S. patients from dying each year of lung cancer.

The data leaves little doubt that early-stage lung cancer should be treated with adjuvant chemotherapy. The chemotherapy drugs are much better today than they were years ago and have fewer side effects and problems. Today's third-generation chemotherapy agents are more active and less toxic than ever before. They target the cancer cells better, causing less damage to the surrounding healthy cells. The benefits of today's chemotherapy outweigh the risks.

Multidisciplinary team approach to care
What does this all mean for patients? It all emphasizes the fact that lung cancer should be treated with a team approach. At Yale-New Haven Hospital we have embraced this team concept. Thoracic surgeons and pulmonologists work jointly with medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, chest radiologists, pathologists, cancer nurses and other specialists to assure that each patient receives the best care.

I recently joined the Yale team from the University of North Carolina where I had founded a Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program 10 years ago that received national recognition as a model for cancer care. With Lynn Tanoue, MD, medical director of the Yale program, we are leading the Thoracic Oncology Program into the future.

The program available at Yale-New Haven consists of a multidisciplinary group of doctors and nurses who will help coordinate a patient's care. All new patients are reviewed at the Tumor Board in order to ensure that the diagnostic and treatment plan has considered all angles. This makes the approach streamlined, yet detailed and designed to give the best results.

The program also entails a comprehensive and carefully planned palette of treatment options based on the latest data, such as the ANITA trial, and thus represent cutting-edge treatment. Several members of the Yale-New Haven Thoracic Oncology team are national leaders in lung cancer, involved in defining national guidelines for care of this disease.

Treatment evolving
A lot of research is under way in the area of lung cancer. A profound transformation in cancer treatment is occurring because we are beginning to understand the fundamental mechanisms that drive cancer cells.

This transformation makes the type of collaboration that occurs at a comprehensive cancer center particularly important, as it involves not only physicians who treat patients, but collaboration with basic scientists in order to translate new insights from the lab into better clinical outcomes. For example, newer tests can help customize chemotherapy to a patient for his or her particular kind of cancer.

Understand your options
If you are diagnosed with lung cancer, I advise getting multidisciplinary input from dedicated specialists in order to fully understand the options. Today, patients have many more options available to them, like adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery.

Three questions you should ask:

• Is your doctor well informed about the latest treatments?
• Is he or she aware of the research under way?
• Is he or she part of a multidisciplinary team?

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Dr. Detterbeck is chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the Thoracic Oncology Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital, as well as professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine.