What is Lung Cancer?
Lung cancer is a group of malignant tumors in which neoplasm develops from cells that line the bronchi or the lungs. Pathology more often affects the right lung, but also the upper lobe of the organ also suffer.
Progression of lung cancer is not rapid but observed for many years. Lung cancer is often not limited to one organ, the tumor can spread metastases to other organs and tissues of the human body.
Lung cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed and dangerous types of oncological disorders. In terms of prevalence, pathology stands on the 2nd place (after skin cancer), and in terms of the level of adverse outcome – on the first. Therefore, it is so important to have an idea of the causes of pathology development, symptoms, methods of diagnosis and treatment.
Lung Cancer Types
Lung cancer, as an oncological pathology, has the following types:
- Central lung cancer is a disease of the lungs that begins to develop in large and even segmental bronchi. Central cancer is usually a small-cell or squamous-cell neoplasm. With this type of oncology, treatment is affected by the level of cancer incidence and the general patient’s condition.
- Peripheral lung cancer. Symptomatic of this type of pulmonary oncology develops later than central cancer. In this malignant formation is not formed quickly, expands for a long time. Sometimes this kind of lung cancer is diagnosed when the neoplasm becomes already large.
- Pleural mesothelioma. The occurrence of lung cancer of this type is rarely diagnosed. The pathological process develops in the pleural membranes. With this type of oncology, therapy is performed using all modern oncology techniques. Mesothelioma is an aggressive pathology, which is important to diagnose as early as possible.
Causes
However, there are some factors, and they are the following:
- Tobacco smoking. It is the very harmful habit in 90% of cases that become the main cause of the lung cancer development. The reason is definite: nicotine and other carcinogenic substances that a person inhales with smoke. It should also be understood that passive smokers have also a risk for lung cancer. The appearance of oncology is affected by the number of cigarettes smoked their composition and length of smoking.
- Chemical substances. The most dangerous for the human body are such substances as: asbestos, arsenic, radon, cadmium, nickel, chromium. People who systematically inhale poisonous vapors or come into contact with these substances risk to gain lung cancer.
- Ecology. Systematic inhalation of fine dust increases the risk of lungs oncology.
Also, medicine calls several factors that further increase the risk of development of oncology in general and lungs in particular.
Risk Factors
In cancerous lung cancer, there are the following risk factors:
- Contact with chloromethyl ether and other harmful substances;
- Radioactive irradiation;
- Chronic pulmonary pathologies: pneumonia, bronchitis, bronchiectasis, tuberculosis;
- Sex also matters. Women who have such a bad habit, like smoking, get an oncology of the respiratory system more often. And the inhabitants of rural areas suffer from pathology less often than people living in megapolises.
Symptoms
The main symptoms of lung cancer are as follows:
- cough;
- dyspnea;
- chest pain;
- coughing with blood allocation;
- rapid weight loss.
The detection of this symptomatology should alert the person, and he should always consult a local doctor who, in case of oncology diagnosing, will write a referral to a specialist. It must be said that the oncology of this organ, the signs of which are nonspecific, carries the danger precisely because this symptomatology is characteristic of a greater number of the respiratory system diseases. Therefore, patients often do not rush to go to the hospital.
It is necessary to pay attention to such non-direct symptoms of oncology as lethargy, apathy, fast fatigue, a rise in body temperature without a cause. The temperature can mask a cancerous tumor under low-grade bronchitis or pneumonia. In addition to these symptoms, one must also say about the laboratory-clinical paraneoplastic syndrome.
