Symptoms and detection of lung cancer

Cancer occurring in lungs is a deadly disease that ruins a person who smokes. The symptoms of lung cancer are not so acute that an individual being affected by it cannot identify the disease correctly. As a result the person fails to approach doctor thinking that the disease is normal and may get well soon. The disease develops inside the person silently and the person would experience severe symptoms at the matured stages of the disease. Eventually the treatment for the disease becomes difficult and costly and the person who cannot afford the cost needed for the treatment does not undergo any treatment. There are some other chances for the cancer survivors for not approaching the physician that is they may not be aware of treatments available for that particular disease, the location of lung cancer treatment centres etc. Hence it is the duty of government and other welfare organizations to publicize the causes and consequences of lung cancer, the symptoms of it and the treatment methods available for it through advertisements and newspapers.

Now a days working group of people suffer from a major problem called mental stress. People in order to get rid of this stress can opt many other activities that may be constructive or destructive. It is in the hands of the people to decide upon which option to choose. Evilness destroys a person. This is true in the case of people who are opting for destructive stress release activities. One such activity is smoking where a person intakes smoke at the cost of losing his good health. At that stage he/she might not know it endangers life and brings end-of-life. On the other hand, people who opt for constructive stress release activities gains good health in addition. The activities like yoga, meditation, exercising etc can release stress as well as build up good health which is an added benefit. Ignorance about the ill-effects of cancer would lead a person to choose the destructive stress release activities. Hence it is the duty of welfare organizations to eradicate this ignorance and educate people to acquire the ability to differentiate between good and harmful things.

As cancer is about the unwanted cells that are grown uncontrollably, treatment for cancer is obviously to remove the unwanted cell present in the body. This is usually done by surgery. The other methods are chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The kind of treatment to be applied for any lung cancer patient depends on the age and health condition of the person, the stage of cancer, type of cancer and also the extent the cancer has reached in the person’s body. The therapy could be done for two conditions: either to completely cure the person by eradicating cancer or to decrease the pain and suffering. The latter is usually applied for the cases which cannot be cured. Chemotherapy is basically the use of drugs to kill the cancer cells so as to cease the further multiplication of it. The other process uses powerful radiation X-rays to kill the cancer cells, known as radiation therapy. When the cancer cells have affected the chest, the surgeons should open the chest wall and operate it. Hence the patient should be healthy enough to withstand the pain and recover back soon. It is actually difficult for patients who are above 60

Diagnosis of lung cancer is quite difficult because the symptoms of lung cancer seem to be normal that could be observed en in normal person. Symptoms like coughing, fever etc are commonly occurring illness. At first, the physician checks for the breathing ability of the patient because the person in whom lung cancer develops has breathing difficulty due to the oxygen deficiency in the blood. Actually, the diagnosis methods of cancer that is developed in the lung which is called as primary and of that which is developed in other parts of the body and extends to lung through blood called as secondary cancer are different. The common test undertaken by the physician to get clear picture of the lung cancer is chest X-ray. Computerized tomography commonly called as CT scan, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan and bronchoscopy are the common diagnosis methods. Normally repeated blood test is taken to identify the changes in the blood cells but still it cannot be said that blood test alone would be enough to diagnose cancer.

As the proverb says, ‘calm before storm’, the symptoms of lung cancer are not acute. It depends on the cancer stage. For example, at the initial stages, the symptoms of lung cancer are mild. Fever, severe coughing, weight loss etc, are some of the symptoms that could be observed in the early stages. As the cancer passes through different stages, the symptoms are severe, like chest pain and back pain due to intense coughing, feeling difficult to breathe and to swallow, bleeding in the nose and blood clots, pain in the bones and joints. It takes years for the symptoms to appear and usually appears only in the advanced stages of cancer. The most affected parts are chest and air passages. The diagnosis of lung cancer is quite difficult because the symptoms of lung cancer like fever, coughing, chest pain could even occur in normal person. Hence the physicians should make a thorough check-up by taking several tests, scan the affected areas periodically and then should arrive at a conclusion. Once the cancer that is originated in the lungs spreads to other parts of the body, symptoms tend to appear in the affected parts too. When the cancer cells reaches brain, the normal functioning of the brain is greatly affected and symptoms like head ache, memory loss tend to appear.