“In fact, 30% to 55% of patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) develop recurrence and die of their disease despite curative resection (3-5).”
You would not be faulted for believing the surgeon if he/she says something like “we got it all” after a diagnosis and surgery of early stage NSCLC. I’m sure the surgeon really did get all of the visible lung tumors.

The operative word (sorry) is “visible.” Cancer surgery often removes all of the visible tumors. Which is great as far as cancer surgery goes. However, the cancer stem cell theory discussed below can mean that cancer stems cells can cause a recurrence of LC.
Conventionally speaking, there are only two therapies to prevent an LC relapse- chemo before surgery or chemo after surgery. Chemotherapy will cause collateral damage before or after. And the LC can still relapse.
To be fair, based on my living with incurable cancer since ’99, conventional, FDA approved oncology is only half the battle. Conventional oncology has to focus on short-term treatment issues. It is virtually impossible for oncology to focus on the long-term, 10-20-30 year picture. But I can…
I believe the solution is to undergo the same evidence-based, non-toxic, non-conventional therapies that have kept me in complete remission from my “incurable” cancer. I am not suggesting that you undergo the exact same nutrition, supplementation, bone health, etc. therapies that I do. I’m saying that there are evidence-based, non-conventional therapies for you to undergo before, during and after conventional lung cancer therapies to reduce your risk of relapse. Please try to look at the long-term picture for your cancer. You will be happy you did.
Have you been diagnosed with lung cancer? What stage? Scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
Thank you,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
“Lung cancer has been the most common type of cancer in the world for several decades (1). Surgery remains the only potentially curative treatment for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, and complete resection can be achieved in a matter of hours and tissue availability is made possible (2).
These points are advantages of surgery that are not associated with other modalities, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In fact, many patients with NSCLC have been cured by surgery. However, there are also many cases that fail to achieve a cure following surgery.
In fact, 30% to 55% of patients with NSCLC develop recurrence and die of their disease despite curative resection (3–5). Therefore, many patients eventually die of their disease due to recurrence after surgery (6,7)
At this time, there are two countermeasures to prevent recurrence; preoperative induction and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. Induction therapy possesses some advantages (61), because (I) patients receive the full dose of the planned regimen and have good compliance because of the preoperative setting. In other words, a considerable number of patients are unable to receive adjuvant chemotherapy due to a slow recovery from surgery…”
“CSC theory is central to cancer cell biology and cancer therapy and is well supported in lung cancer since CSCs are associated with aggressive cancer behavior, metastatic progression, resistance to therapy and relapse…”