About Lung Cancer Symptoms, Stages, and Treatment
Lung cancer has emerged as the leading killer of men and women stricken with invasive cancer, affecting husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, and causing suffering for many families. In the United States, lung cancer overtook breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in 1987. It deaths account for a quarter of all American cancer deaths, killing more people every year than prostate, breast, and colon cancer combined. Over 157,000 Americans are estimated to have died from this in 2015.
This disease is difficult to detect in its early stages, and treatments for this in its later stages provide a poor prognosis: Those with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer—the most common type—have about 1 percent survival rate five years after diagnosis. The other type of lung cancer small cell. It is even more aggressive. According to the American Cancer Society, the overall survival rate for this as of Jan. 1, 2014 stands at just 3%.
What Causes Lung Cancer?
The exact cause of lung cancer is still being investigated. They have shown certain risk factors to play a part in causing cells to become cancerous. Risk factors for cancer include smoking, exposure to air pollution, and genetics.
Does Smoking Cause Lung Cancer?
The major cause of this cancer in men and women is mainly because of cigarette smoking. In 1876, the machine was invented to make rolled-up cigarettes and thus provided cheap tobacco products to almost everyone. Smoking dramatically increased and so did lung cancers following this innovation. Currently, about 90% of all lung cancers are related to smoking. Radon gas, pollution, toxins, and other factors contribute to the remaining 10%.
Cigarettes and cigarette smoke contain over 70 cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens). Some carcinogens found in cigarette smoke include:
- Lead (a highly poisonous metal)
- Arsenic (an insecticide)
- Cadmium (a battery component)
- Isoprene (used to make synthetic rubber)
- Benzene (a gasoline additive)
- Cigar smoke is heavy on tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), which are consider cancerous.
Lung Cancer and Cilia
Cigarette smoke damages and can kill hair-like projections on airway cells termed cilia. The cilia normally sweep out toxins, carcinogens, viruses, and bacteria. When the cilia damage or destroy by smoke, these items may accumulate in the lungs and may cause problems such as infections or lung cancer.
Symptoms Of Lung Cancer
Unfortunately, lung cancers often have either no early signs or nonspecific early symptoms that people often dismiss. About 25% of people with this and no symptoms are diagnosed after having a chest X-ray, CT during a routine test, or as a procedure for other problems. It includes pulmonary cancer symptoms that can detect below.
List of Lung Cancer Symptoms
- Cough (chronic, recurrent)
- Fatigue
- Weight loss
- Shortness of breath or wheezing
- Coughing up phlegm that contains blood
- Chest pain
- Three Common Lung Cancer Screening Methods
- They usually accomplish screening for it using three methods.
Physical Exam
A physical exam will look for signs of wheezing, shortness of breath, cough, pain and other signs of lung cancer. Depending on the advancement of cancer, other early signs of lung cancer symptoms may include a lack of sweating, dilated neck veins, face swelling, excessively constricted pupils, and other signs. The physical exam will also include the patient’s history of smoking and a chest X-ray.