What is Lung Cancer?
Globally lung cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed types of cancer and millions of lives are claimed every year by this lethal disease. Compared to all other types of cancer barring a few the survival rate is very low for the patients diagnosed with this type of cancer. In most cases the disease is diagnosed in the developed stages and this poses serious challenge to the survival from this cancer. Presently the risk of cancer is growing in the children and young as well and as it was perceived in the common notion it is no longer a disease that is diagnosed in elderly people. The number of suffering population from lung cancer is increasing at a rapid speed. In the present health care scenario the disease is mainly addressed by the traditional cancer treatment therapies and still now prevention is more stressed by the medical authorities than the cure for the disease as long as no conclusive care for the lung cancer does surface before the medical researchers. Here we would introduce some of the important aspects of the lung cancer including the definition of the disease, clinical aspects in regard to the spread and threat of the disease, treatment and healing procedures that are administered to the patients suffering from lung cancer, symptoms of lung cancer and diagnostic procedure involved and staging of the disease.
Clinical Definition of Lung Cancer
The uncontrollable growth of the cells in the tissues of the lungs is called lung cancer. Though the primary lung cancer starts in the lung it can spread in the nearby organs through the process of metastasis. The lung cancer that starts in the lung only is called primary lung cancer and if the lung is affected by the spread of the cancer in other parts of the body then this type of lung cancer can be termed as the secondary lung cancer. Here our discussion would mainly focus on the aspects of primary lung cancer that starts in the lung only.
Signs and symptoms of lung cancer
Most of the signs and symptoms associated with lung cancer can have different routes and originations other than the lung cancer and this is the reason why lung cancer cannot be described in relation to any specific signs and syndromes. Considering maximum number of cases of lung cancer the most common signs and symptoms of lung cancer include shortness of breath, coughing of blood, chronic coughing, wheezing, chest pain, pain in the abdomen, fatigue, loss of appetite, hoarse voice, etc. The symptoms of lung cancer can be very wide to include various different types of symptoms. But all these symptoms are not specific to the lung cancer and this is the reason why lung cancer is one of the diseases that is so hard to diagnose. This factor is one of the contributing factors towards lung cancer being one of the gravest life threats that is normally diagnosed in an advanced stage.
Staging and Treatment of lung cancer
Staging of lung cancer is crucial to the treatment of the disease as the treatment of the disease largely depend on the stage of the cancer or the spread and depth of the disease in the organism. The metastasis of the lung cancer in other organs actually determines the staging of the lung cancer. The treatment of lung cancer is done mainly with surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy along with medicinal treatments.
Causes of Lung Cancer
Tobacco smoking and other drug abuse accounts for the largest number of lung
cancer cases. Other important factors that are responsible for many of the lung
cancer cases include exposure to radiation, asbestos, and other factors of
exposing the lung to carcinogen.
Advertisement
