“When I meet with patients, I tell them that there are three critical parts to their therapy. The first is local therapy, such as surgery or radiation. The second is chemotherapy, or systemic therapy. And the third is their overall well-being, such as nutrition,” says Russell K. Hales, M.D.
Hales, a radiation oncologist at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus, says, “It's critical, that lung cancer patients stay healthy and avoid weight loss as they go through treatment. Your stamina through treatment will affect your ability to get all the treatment that we need to give. As a result, we use nutritionists early on in treatment, because we know that a patient's stamina will drive their overall outcome, and their ability to tolerate the therapies that we'd like for them.”