What are the symptoms of lung cancer? You should be suspicious if you have a distressing cough brings up blood, sputum, more so if you smoke and have a family history of disease. Other signs include shortness of breath, hoarseness, chest pain, arm or shoulder pain, loss of appetite and weight.
"In general, lung cancer is first suspected because of your physical symptoms, or because an abnormal mass on a routine chest X-ray. Loss of appetite and weight mayThe first signs of lung cancer. In this case, the first step is to determine with certainty whether cancer is present. Apart from a regular chest X-giving resonance imaging (special chest X-rays that an extremely limited view may be obtained on the lungs) or other special investigations like a CT scan, "said Dr. David E. Larson, editor-in Chief of the "Mayo Clinic Family Health Book."
Unfortunately, lung cancer is considered one of the hardest cancers to detect, because it can bePresent for 10 to 20 years without noticeable symptoms. Five to 10 percent of cases accidentally discovered during a routine X-ray examination.
General symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, and pain are often ignored or improperly by the patient for something else. By the time symptoms occur, the disease may have reached an incurable stage. This explains the poor prognosis of most patients with the disease.
The easiest way to avoid developing lung cancer, is to quit smoking. It may bedifficult to quit, but it is not impossible. Millions of people have done it and those who quit reduce their chances of developing lung cancer by two thirds.
Ninety percent of people who quit smoking do so on their own, so start now before it's too late. If you find that hard to do, you can join smoking cessation classes or enroll in a clinic that offers the same service. Select the program that makes sense for you and use you make it easier to help from friends and family thingsfor you.
For that is linked to cancer, which can still be helped, surgery is the preferred treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are dependent on the type of cancer recommended that the patient's age and overall health and the extent of the disease.
"A cancer in the lung is usually removed surgically. It is sometimes necessary to remove an entire lung. Because lung cancer is usually not detected until they are at an advanced stage, surgery alone is not able to eliminate it,and radiation and chemotherapy in combination can be used with or instead of surgery, "said the editor of" Consumer Guide's Family Health & Medical Guide. "
Which treatment is best for you? Only your doctor can answer that. But here are some suggestions from Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld of the New York Hospital - Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the "best treatment"
"Here is what I recommend to my own patients with lung cancer. If the cancer, regardless of theirCell type that does not seem to have spread and lung function is good, then surgery should be done immediately, and in all age groups, including older people who are otherwise in good health. Investigate oat cell cancers are treated with chemotherapy and radiation, as recommended by an oncologist.
"When CT scans and other tests show that it is too late for surgery (because the cancer has already been to the lymph nodes in the opposite side of the chest or elsewhere) is widespread, I leave it alone if it does not cause anySymptoms. I prescribe radiation, surgery or chemotherapy only if the incurable cancer causes symptoms. The purpose of intervention at this point is, the person feels better. If a patient with advanced lung cancer has no symptoms, I have to do nothing to them. This approach is not shared by all or even most doctors. The majority of my colleagues go full-blast with radiotherapy, surgery and toxic chemotherapy in the hope of a cure, which happens rarely or never, at that stage.Such treatment, in my experience, often accelerated or prolonged suffering, "Rosenfeld concluded. (Next: breast cancer.)
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