TY - JOUR T1 - Lung cancer investigations and treatment Greater possibilities to improve patients’ quality of life JF - Breathe JO - breathe SP - 313 LP - 314 DO - 10.1183/20734735.000211 VL - 7 IS - 4 AU - R. Öhman Y1 - 2011/06/01 UR - http://breathe.ersjournals.com/content/7/4/313.abstract N2 - Lung cancer has for many years been a disease with poor prognosis and still is. However, new techniques for diagnostic procedures and the introduction of new treatment alternatives give hope that the near future will bring maybe not cure for all patients but the possibility to turn the disease from a killer with a short life expectancy to a disease of chronic nature for which various treatment options keep the disease stable and gives the patient a good quality of life.The introduction of positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) as a part of lung cancer examinations has given us the possibility of creating a map of each patient early in the process of diagnostic procedures. However, it is important to state that PET-CT can not be used alone to decide what stage of disease the patient has and thereby design a treatment programme. PET-CT needs to be combined with other diagnostic procedures, such as bronchoscopy, endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and mediastinoscopy, in … ER -