#1 Lung Cancer Symptom and Lung Cancer Treatment

Lung cancer is one of the dreadful diseases prevailing among the human population around the world. It is easy for an individual to get cured once the disease has been detected at the earliest possible time. But the occurrence of early symptom of lung cancer is questionable. When symptoms occur, the cancer is often advanced. The first and foremost early symptom of lung cancer is coughing up blood or haemoptysis.

As we discussed above, the early symptom of lung cancer is haemoptysis (coughing up blood). You should consider this early symptom of lung cancer as a warning sign of a cancer, which might be curable. In case if you come across blood during coughing up, you should immediately contact your GP for getting necessary advice, particularly if you are a person above 400 years with smoking habit. Sometimes the early symptom of lung cancer may be due to the effects of secondary tumor somewhere else in the body.

The common early symptoms of lung cancer are: -
Persistent pain in the chest or elsewhere, (possibly from the cancer spreading to a bone).
Excessive fatigue.
Worsening breathlessness.
Chronic cough.
Weight loss &loss of appetite
Hoarseness
Wheezing
Pyrexia of unknown origin
Chest pain
Dyspnea

The above symptoms also being the symptoms of many other lung problems, so it is always advisable to see a physician to ascertain the cause. Once you entered the doctor s cabin, he will put forth numerous questions about your medical history, including questions about your accidental or incidental exposure to hazardous chemicals.

Your physician will subject you for physical examination after inception of the early symptom of the lung cancer. If you are suffering from persistent cough with sputum (mucus), you may be asked to give a sample of your sputum for the presence of cancer cells. In addition to this your doctor will order a specialized X-ray including CT scan or simple chest X-ray for easy location of the abnormal spots in your lung.

Your health care professional may use bronchoscope to examine your lungs including airways, and will take sample, or biopsy, of the tumor using the bronchoscope itself. The bronchoscope will be inserted into one s lung through either nostrils or mouth. This is one of the several ways in which the doctor collects the biopsy sample after seeing the early symptom of the lung cancer.

Most of the physicians are most likely use a modern CT scan in smokers to identify lung cancers of smaller size, which can be treated and cured easily than the large sized lung cancer. The method called helical-low dose CT scan has been used extensively to spot small sized cancers.

Once you have been observed with the early symptom of lung cancer and also confirmative diagnosis of lung cancer, your physician will do numerous tests to find out whether the cancer has put its feet in various regions of your body. These details will help your physician to ascertain the palliative treatment for improving your health. An MRI, a bone scans and CT scan are the common tests to find out the metastasis stage of your lung cancer after observing the early symptom of lung cancer.

Lung cancer is one of the major cancers for both men and women. Uncontrolled division of cells in our body is the basic cause of the cancerous cell growth. This uncontrolled division of cells forms tumors which are benign and malignant. The malignant tumors are called cancer. When we say malignant it spreads to the other parts of the body through the blood stream or the lymphatic system. It is very difficult to get a cure for lung cancer at the advanced stages where it is found spread to the other parts of the body. If it is not treated at the early stage then chances are there for it to spread to the other parts of the body like liver, brain, bone and adrenal glands.

Cure for lung cancer is through surgery or radiation therapy or chemotherapy. For treating patients in the early stages of the cancer surgery is used. With the help of the surgery the cancerous cells (tumors) are removed. A single operation is not sufficient in some cases. If there is any re-growth of the cancerous cells then a second operation is also performed. If the tumors are spread to the close by area in the body, all of them can be removed with a single surgery. If it is spread to other areas of the body then a surgery will not suffice. Smokers are those who are affected by lung cancer mostly. Most of the smokers come for treating cancer only after the age of 50. At this age it is not possible to perform multiple surgeries in their body to remove the tumors since their body condition may not be suitable for such surgeries. After age 50 performing multiple surgeries are very risky. The size and the location of the tumor in the lungs play an important role in a surgery for lung cancer. The common surgeries that are performed in the lung are Lobectomy, segmental resection or wedge resection, or pneumonectomy. A lobectomy is a surgery in which an entire lobe is removed provided the lung functions well. In segmental resection the portion of the tumor alone is removed and in pneumonectomy the entire lung is removed. As the age of the patient progresses they are at risk in a lung cancer surgery. Surgery should be performed in young patients or they have to go for other treatments of cancer.

Radiation therapy is the most popular among the cure for lung cancer. The cells that divided uncontrollably are destroyed by radiation. The radiation can be from high energy X-Rays. The radiation therapy is used for many purposes. It can be the primary treatment for cancer or it is used as a supplementary treatment before performing a surgery. A radiation therapy is also used to clean up the area of the surgery by eliminating the remaining cancerous cells after a surgery. If the lung cancer has spread to far areas in the body then radiation therapy can be used to treat those areas. Shortness of breath is a symptom of having cancer and this symptom can be removed by using radiation therapy apart from removing the cancerous cells. Radiation therapy can also be combined with chemotherapy for effective treatment. Many sessions are required to treat a patient through radiation therapy. In order to avoid the radiation from affecting the normal cells in the nearby area a new technique called conformal radiation therapy is used. In this method the radiation beam changes the shape to suit that of the tumor being destroyed.

Chemotherapy is another method that is used as a cure for lung cancer. Toxic drugs are used to treat cancer cells through injections or catheter. With chemotherapy the life of the person can be prolonged and this is used to treat all the stages of lung cancer. Combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy as a cure for lung cancer is found to be more effective in treating lung cancer. Side effects due to chemotherapy and radiation therapy are to be considered before going for a treatment. Experimental treatments like Photodynamic therapy can be tried in some cases.

Chemotherapy for lung cancer is the therapy designed according to the symptoms, type of the cancerous stage, age of the patient, time of approach of the affected patient to the cancer specialist etc. In general both the attending physician and the patient should be aware of baseline technical information on the kind of chemotherapy for lung cancer now proposed.

Toxicity during chemotherapy for lung cancer
Toxicity due to the prolonged administration of chemotherapy has been documented in cancer hospitals of various countries and however, due to the open meetings in person or internet based forum or informative boards maintained in the web, the patients may attempt to acquire additional knowledge on these toxic effects that are likely to happen in them during their undergoing of chemotherapy for lung cancer.

Chemotherapy may include anti cancerous drugs often in combination like cisplatin, which is often given by intra-venous route in patients with lung cancer. However, it is to be understood that the effects of chemotherapy for lung cancer depends more specifically on type of lung cancer and extent of it s spread. If metastasis is encountered extensively in organs like liver, kidney, bone etc. or if it is a small cell lung cancer, then the chemotherapy for lung cancer may not be much successful but however, one has to alleviate the signs of pain in the patient by the lung cancer and hence, along with combination chemotherapy for lung cancer, supportive therapy is also required.

Chemotherapy for lung cancer includes medicaments that are specifically well known and marketed after undergoing rigorous clinical trials in affected patients to cause the anti tumor effects and during such therapy, the concerned patient should analyze the symptoms he is experiencing in the lung cancer and should be able to tell clearly the thoracic specialist on wherefrom the sign like the pain factor in the thoracic region and it is to be understood that if the mediastinal lymph node is involved, then the intensity of pain factor will be often greater and is most of the times, intolerable thus warranting immediate medical intervention symptomatically. Hence, during the routine chemotherapy both the affected patient and the attending doctor have to exercise great cautions without leaving the targeted treatment unless it requires so.  
 
Monitoring during chemotherapy
Monitoring is required in-patient receiving multiple drugs given to the lung cancer. This monitoring is essential because of the fact that there are certain medicaments that can affect severely the hepatic system or blood cells in body. Similarly, there are recorded incidences of renal damage by the drugs used under the pretext of chemotherapy for lung cancer. Similarly, the experienced clinical oncologist will be carefully monitoring the patient for presence of any symptoms of affection in nervous system, also.

These type of clinical precautions must be undertaken on a priority basis and the significance of this is because of the accepted fact that though anti- cancerous effects are documented with these chemotherapy for lung cancer, it is equally true that side effects may occur in such patients because of the unexpected and unwarranted signs and symptoms due to their effects on various organs and their metabolites present in serum of the patients undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer.