Lung Cancer: Clinical Practice Assessment in Nursing Project

This nursing project provides a comprehensive overview of lung cancer, its causes, and the challenges faced in its treatment. It begins with an assessment of the disease, highlighting its prevalence in Australia and the importance of clinical practice guidelines for healthcare professionals. The project includes a personal reflection on a nursing scenario involving a patient with lung cancer, detailing the nurse's responses and reasoning in providing care. Assessment B focuses on a PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) framework, research questions, and a search strategy utilizing various databases and methods to find relevant information. The project explores chemotherapy and radiation therapy as common treatments, discussing their benefits and side effects, and emphasizes the significance of smoking cessation. The project uses evidence-based practice to demonstrate the importance of clinical practices and its usages in treating patients suffering from severe cancer. The project includes references to various studies and resources to support its findings. This project aims to find appropriate solutions for treating the disease of lung cancer so that the number of deaths occurring due to lung cancer can be minimized effectively and bring awareness regarding the causes and precaution of lung cancer.

NURSING PROJECT

Table of Contents
Assessment A...................................................................................................................................1
Assessment B...................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Assessment A
Background
Lung Cancer is a cancerous lung tumour which occurs due to uncontrolled growth of cells in the
tissues of lungs. It has been observed that most of the people living in Australia are suffering
from lung cancer. This is considered as 4th main cause of deaths that occurred in country in
2015. About 5.3 % of all deaths were due to lung cancer in the same year (Causes of Death,
Australia, 2015). The main causes of lung cancer are smoking, eating tobaccos, living in
polluted environment, etc. There is a big challenge for doctors who are managing patients
suffering from lung cancer. In order to face such challenges, clinical practice guidance is being
provided to them. It is nothing but the proper and authentic guidelines given to a doctor or nurse
for treating a disease. It is a beneficial tool as it helps in making complex decisions related to
clinical practices. Thus, as a fruitful result clinicians improve their potentiality of taking right
healthcare decisions.
Importance to Nursing
Clinician practices are playing a crucial role in the field of nursing. It is an evidence based
practice that assists in filling the gaps present in caring of a patient so as to achieve good
outcomes. These guidelines provide a golden opportunity to nurses of expanding their roles in
the sector of patient care. Most of the health professionals are using Chemotherapy and
Radiation-therapy for treating lung cancer patients (Herbst & et. al., 2016). Before giving
therapies, it is important for them to concentrate on clinician practices. From there, they will
receive appropriate ideas of removing tumours from body. Thus, their work become easy and
accurate. As an outcome, people who had lung cancer receives another chance to led a better
life. Hence, it can be said that by achieving different clinician practices or recommendations of
optimising patient care, both nurses and doctors can attain chances of improving their
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professional career.
Personal Reflection
Reporting I am appointed as a nurse for taking care of a
person named 'Mr. John'. He was continuously
coughing up blood as he was struggling with
chronic lung cancer. He was also feeling severe
ache while breathing and coughing as well.
Responding By observing such condition of bleeding, I got
completely shocked since the quantity of blood
was more. At the same time, I was thinking
that what action should be taken by me to
control his rapid flow of bleeding.
Relating According to my experience, I think that my
patient might be in last stage. Thus, it is
necessary to admit him in hospital so that
healthcare professionals can attempt to solve
this serious issue.
Reasoning In last stage of lung cancer, an individual may
feel difficulty in breathing and excessive
amount of blood comes from its cough.
Reconstructing As the condition of Mr. John was extremely
serious, our team need to reconstruct the
treatment offered to him. In this case,
'Bronchoscopy' should be used as an eminent
tool for stopping the blood rate coming from
his mouth (Jensen & et. al., 2012). If this may
not give instant result, then I need to convince
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his family for the 'surgery' as the patient was
struggling between life and death. In surgery,
infected lung is removed and transplantation of
new one take place.
Assessment B
Aim
 “To find an appropriate solution for treating the disease of lung cancer so that number of
death occurring due to lung cancer can be minimised effectively”.
 Another motive of choosing this topic is: “To bring awareness regrading the causes and
precaution of lung cancer”.
 The main aim of designing this project is: “To highlight the importance of clinical
practices and its usages in treating patients suffering from severe cancer”.
PICO (Quantitative)
Population Lung cancer causes more deaths (i.e. 30.5 per
100,000 persons)
Intervention Prohibit smoking and promoting consumption
of healthy food items. (Tobacco Advertising
Prohibition Act 1992 was enacted in October
2003 by Australian government )
Control In 2014-15, 16.3 % of 18 to 44 year old people
usually smoked regularly in compared with
28.2 % civilians in 2001.
Outcome Reduction in number of death happening due to
lung cancer (30.5 % in 2015)
Research questions
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 What are the clinical practices that can be used in treating any patient suffering from
lung cancer ?
 What is the importance of using clinical practices in context to nursing ?
 What are the signs & symptoms of lung cancer ?
 How many people are suffering from Lung Cancer in Australia ?
 What should be done for preventing people from lung cancer ?
Search strategy
Keywords : Lung, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Radiation - therapy, symptoms, signs, Australian,
Clinicians, Clinical practices, Smoking, Nursing, Bleeding, Cough, Government, Governing
body, death number, guidelines, human, infected, consumption, health professionals, patients,
healthy,food-items,guidance, healthcare, potentiality, doctors, nurses, tumours, body, patient,
breathing, Bronchoscopy, surgery, transplantation, civilians, shrinking, antagonistic, cancerous
tissue, cells
Databases : Governmental websites, books, internet, journals, magazines, webpages of
different hospitals, Views of researchers and health professionals, newspapers,
Methods : Research design and Sampling
Best Evidence
Best Practice Level of Evidence Study Design In-text Citation in
CDU APA 6th Format
Survey Number of death
occurred in Australia
Meta analysis Durlak, J. A. & et. al.
(2011). The impact of
enhancing students’
social and emotional
learning: A meta‐
analysis of school‐
based universal
interventions. Child
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development. 82(1).
405-432.
Investigation Therapies used in
treating lung cancer
Randomised
Controlled Trial
Brannon-Peppas, L., &
Blanchette, J. O.
(2012). Nanoparticle
and targeted systems
for cancer therapy.
Advanced drug
delivery reviews. 64.
206-212.
Questionnaire Cohort Study
(Prospective
Observational Study )
Wen, C. P.& et. al.
(2011). Minimum
amount of physical
activity for reduced
mortality and extended
life expectancy: a
prospective cohort
study. The Lancet.
378(9798). 1244-1253.
Findings
 Chemotherapy is a kind of cancer treatment wherein anticancer drugs (one or more than
that according to the stage of disease) are used by the healthcare professionals. In the
case of lung cancer, doctors use mostly specific combination of drugs. Some main
anticancer drugs being utilised by care givers are gemcitabine (Gemzar), paclitaxel
(Taxol and others), pemetrexed (Alimta), etc. But there are some negative effects of this
treatment i.e. Vomiting, Diarrhea, hair loss, mouth spores, constipation & so on.
 Radiation-therapy is commonly used in treating patients suffering from lung cancer
disease. In this therapy, powerful or omnipotent waves of energy is being used for
disrupting the growth ability of cancer cells, slowing their generation and shrinking the
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tumours so that surgery can be properly (Garon & et. al., 2015). The antagonistic impact
of radiation-therapy mostly occurred since healthy tissues existing near the tumour is
also affected along with cancerous tissue. This is to be noted that such type of therapy is
applied when patient do not get agree for the surgery.
 Smoking is considered as the main cause of Lung Cancer since from continuous smoke
the poisonous gases get absorbed by the lungs. Thus, civilians should leave the habit of
smoking.
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REFERENCES
Garon, E. B. & et. al. (2015). Pembrolizumab for the treatment of non–small-cell lung cancer.
New England Journal of Medicine.372(21). 2018-2028.
Grunnet, M., & Sorensen, J. B. (2012). Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) as tumor marker in
lung cancer. Lung cancer. 76(2). 138-143.
Herbst, R. S. & et. al. (2016). Pembrolizumab versus docetaxel for previously treated, PD-L1-
positive, advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (KEYNOTE-010): a randomised
controlled trial. The Lancet. 387(10027). 1540-1550.
National Lung Screening Trial Research Team. (2011). Reduced lung-cancer mortality with
low-dose computed tomographic screening. New England Journal of Medicine.
365(5). 395-409.
Rizvi, N. A. & et. al. (2015). Mutational landscape determines sensitivity to PD-1 blockade in
non–small cell lung cancer. Science. 348(6230).124-128.
Jensen, K. W. & et. al.(2012). Multicenter experience with electromagnetic navigation
bronchoscopy for the diagnosis of pulmonary nodules. Journal of bronchology &
interventional pulmonology. 19(3) 195-199.
Online
Australian smoking rates falling. 2015. [Online]. Available
through<http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyCatalogue/
E6DE72422D16BBB4CA258130001536C2?OpenDocument>.
Causes of Death, Australia, 2015. [Online]. Available
through<http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/
3303.0~2015~Main%20Features~Lung%20cancer~10004>.
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