Lung Cancer

The signs and symptoms of lung cancer may take years to appear and are often confused with symptoms of less serious conditions. Signs and symptoms may not appear until the disease reaches an advanced stage. Quitting smoking reduces a persons risk a lot although former smokers remain at greater risk for lung cancer than people who never smoked. Exposure to other carcinogens like asbestos and radon gas also increases a persons risk, especially when combined with cigarette or cigar smoking. Lumps of cancer cells or as we call them tumors then form and disrupt the lung, making it hard to do things normally. There are four different types of lung cancer that has been recorded. The types are small lung cancer, Squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Tobacco smoking is mainly the cause to the first three cancers. With the last cancer it is linked to low-tar cigarettes. The thing that causes lung cancer the most is smoking or the second hand smoke of tobacco the other causes are breaking in chemicals such as asbestos or any other natural radioactive gases or radon. The older you get the easier it is for you to get lung cancer plus the longer you smoke the faster your going to get it. Very few people have gotten lung cancer at the age of forty. The most common age to get lung cancer is 70 to 74. In the United States ninety-one thousand men and seventy-nine thousand women are diagnosed with lung caner each year.

Lung cancer doesn't really run in a family. There has been few if any reported cases. Not all people who smoke get lung cancer and an inherited trait may be the reason why those people get lung cancer from smoking or just second hand smoking. With all the research that has been gathered to this date diet does not affect the chance of you getting lung cancer. There are many symptoms to determine whether you have lung cancer or not one is shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Some others are coughing up blood, chest pain, loss of appetite, weight loss and general fatigue. Some types of lung cancer appears to not have any noticeable symptoms but you could still have it and you don't notice it till it spreads or it goes so bad that you just notice it.

Lung cancer is sometimes found through regular x-rays. But the main way to treat the cancer is through bronchodcopy which deals with a long tube going down your throat letting the doctors take samples of it and just to take a look at it. The are many other ways to find it such as a CT scan, liver ultrasound or bone scan those ways can also help to tell the doctors if it has spread to other parts of the body yet. There is a drug treatment that can be used and it is called chemotherapy and that is usually for the small cell lung cancers. There is also another type and it is called radiotherapy and it is usually used if you can get the surgery. But for the other types of cancers surgery could be your best bet and after or before the surgery you could have chemotherapy to help kill off any of the remaining cancer cells. Lung cancer is one of the most dangerous cancers. When or if you have the treatments it will only prolong your life but complete cures are very very rare. When you have lung cancer and get treated four out of five people die within the first year of being diagnosed. Only one in twenty is alive five years later.

The drug treatments such as chemotherapy cause bruising, fatigue, hair loss, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. If you have the nausea or vomiting then they can be controlled be certain drugs. When you loose you hair it is never permanent it will always come back, you may not have all your hair missing but in come incidents you may. If you are suspected of having lung cancer you should go to your doctor and have a physical examination done. When having this examination they may want to my test on you such as chest radiograph, bronchoscopy, needle biopsy, and a bone scan. The chest radiograph will help them find enlarged lymph nodes or a restricted mass in the lungs. The bronchoscopy is a visual examination of the windpipe and the lung branches performed by a repertory disease specialist. When you have a needle biopsy the needle is inserted in the suspicious mass and it is pushed back and forth to free some cells which are drown back into the needle and inspected. A bone scan is performed to rule out suspicious metastasis to the bone. There also may be signs and symptoms caused by the spread of lung cancer to other parts of the body. Depending on which organs are affected, you can get headaches, general weakness, pain, bone fractures, bleeding, or blood clots. Anyone experiencing these signs or