Alternative lung cancer treatment information is available online, as is general material on alternative cancer treatment. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is an increasingly favored approach to therapy by conventional medical practitioners who have seen beneficial results for their cancer patients. Complementary medicine means any treatment that is used along with standard treatment; alternative medicine is usually considered therapy that is used instead of standard therapy.

Integrative medicine is not either-or care, but an eclectic approach that allows a healthcare worker to choose the most appropriate means of treatment from conventional and alternative medicine. Orthodox procedures for treating lung cancer include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, either in combination or alone. Each has serious side effects, and none can be considered a lasting cure when the lung cancer survival rate is scrutinized.

Alternative Lung Cancer Treatment Is Controversial

Despite the prognosis (chance of recovery) for lung cancer patients, alternative lung cancer treatment is controversial, to say the least. Although the five-year survival rate for non-small cell lung cancer patients when the cancer is caught in the earliest stage is 60-80 percent, and in stage II, 30-50 percent, conventional medical doctors will not substitute alternative lung cancer treatment for standard treatment.

A realistic restraint is imposed by the states, which can prosecute a doctor whose treatment does not adhere to the standard of care in the medical community. Therapy based on detoxification, nutrition, and natural chemotherapies is not yet accepted as alternative, or substitute, therapy for lung cancer by Western medicine. Some of the major hospitals, and some cancer centers, however, are using these natural means as complements to orthodox treatment.