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When a nodule is malignant, lung cancer is the most common cause. Exposure to tuberculosis or an infectious fungus( histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis, cryptococcosis, and aspergillosis) can increase the risk of developing a solitary pulmonary nod...
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Lung cancer is cancer that begins in the lungs, the two organs found in the chest that help you breathe.The lungs are made up of areas called lobes. The right lung has three lobes; the left lung has two, so there''s room for the heart.
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Lung cancer is a malignant disease in which lung cells become abnormal, characterized by uncontrollable, unlimited growth. These cells can then invade nearby normal tissue and destroy organ structure, a process called"invasion."
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Q: Can lung cancer be prevented? A: The best way to avoid getting lung cancer is to quit smoking or never to start. Avoiding second-hand smoke and being aware of possible exposure to cancer-causing chemicals is also important. In some cases, people who get lung cancer have no known risk factors. Unfortunately, there is no known way to prevent all cases of lung cancer.
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Lung cancer is a disease in which the cells of the lung tissues grow uncontrollably and form tumors. It is the leading cause of death from cancer among both men and women in the United States.
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There are two main types of lung cancer. They are non-small cell lung cancer and small- cell lung cancer. A doctor called a pathologist uses a microscope to look at the cancer cells collected during your biopsy to tell which type of cancer you have. These two types of lung cancer grow and spread in different ways. Therefore, they are treated differently. Non-small cell lung cancer usually grows and spreads more slowly than small cell lung cancer.
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Detailed information on lung cancer, lung cancer symptom, lung cancer treatment, lung cancer sign, lung cancer medication, malignant lung tumor, lung cancer cause, benign lung tumor, lung cancer risk factor, lung cancer prevention
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Lung cancer is a disease in which the cells of the lung tissues grow uncontrollably and form tumors. It is the leading cause of death from cancer among both men and women in the United States.
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Lung cancer is cancer that starts in your lungs. It is the second most common cancer in men and women. Lung cancer often takes many years to develop. Once lung cancer occurs, cancer cells can break away and spread to other parts of the body.
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Researchers are continually finding new ways to treat lung cancer. People diagnosed with the disease now have more hope for survival than ever before.
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If you are at risk for lung cancer, what can you do? The best thing you can do is to try to avoid as many of the risks as possible.
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The goal of surgery is to remove the tumor from your lung. Your doctor will try to take out the tumor without harming other parts of your body, but he or she usually has to remove part, or all of, the cancerous lung.
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The best way you can protect yourself from lung cancer is to be aware of what makes a person more likely to get it. These are called your risk factors. Knowing what puts you at risk for lung cancer can help you make healthy choices in your life to help you avoid it.
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Your doctor may suggest chemotherapy to treat lung cancer for any of the following situations.
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Treatment for lung cancer usually begins a few weeks after diagnosis. This gives patients time to talk with their doctor about treatment choices, to get a second opinion, to decide about treatment, and to prepare themselves and their loved ones.
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Expert-reviewed information summary about factors that may influence the risk of developing lung cancer and about research aimed at the prevention of this disease.
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A prognosis is a statement about the prospect of surviving and recovering from a disease. It may sound harsh to ask the question, "Can I survive this?” But it's a question on most people's minds when they are facing a diagnosis of lung cancer. And the answer can be just as hard as asking the question. The decision to ask about your prognosis is a personal one. It is up to you to decide how much you want to know.
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Lung cancer acts differently in each person. The way a cancer grows is called its pathophysiology. The first place cancer is found in the body is called the primary site or primary tumor. When a cancer spreads, it is said to have metastasized. The stage of your cancer is based on the size of a tumor and where and how much it has spread. There are different stages for non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer.
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The American Cancer Society estimates that 87 percent of lung cancer cases are related to smoking. However, a small percentage of people who get lung cancer do not have a history of smoking or being around secondhand smoke. So, not all smokers get lung cancer and not all lung cancer patients were smokers.
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You may not notice signs of lung cancer in its early stages. In fact, many lung cancers are found through a chest X-ray taken for other reasons.
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The goal of PDT is to kill cancer cells. It's done in a kind of two-step process. First, you're given a drug that makes the cancer cells sensitive to light. Then, the doctor uses a laser or other light source to kill the cells. It is a new treatment for early stage non-small cell lung cancer. Having PDT when lung cancer is limited to the lining of your air passages may be an effective way to treat your cancer. There are clinical trials to determine uses for PDT other than just for early stage non-small cell lung cancer. It may also help ease symptoms from more advanced cancer, such as breathing problems and coughing up blood.
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Your doctor may suggest radiation for you in any of the following situations. You have non-small cell lung cancer and are not able to have surgery.
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You may have another type of treatment before surgery to make the tumor smaller and easier to remove. If so, it's called neoadjuvant therapy. You may have chemotherapy alone. Or you may have chemotherapy and radiation. The goal of either is to help shrink the tumor so that it is easier to take out. There is usually a 4 week break after the radiation before the surgery.
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If you're having lung-cancer-like symptoms, your doctor will want to know why. Your doctor is likely to ask you questions about your:
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You can usually have PDT as an outpatient, meaning you do not have to stay in the hospital. A trained nurse or doctor injects you with a drug called Photofrin (porfimer sodium). You'll be sent home for 24 to 72 hours while your cells absorb the drug. The drug will leave most of your normal cells during this time, but it will stay longer in cancer cells and the cells of the skin.
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Targeted cancer treatment uses drugs. They target the specific molecules that let cancer grow and spread. Because of their focus on the specific part of the cancer cell that is causing the problem, they may cause less harm to normal cells than other kinds of treatment. That may mean they don't cause as many side effects. Treatment for cancer with fewer side effects can lead to an improved quality of life.
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Lung cancer doesn't strike only smokers, and women appear to be more vulnerable to it than men: a review of new information about this most deadly cancer.
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A small but significant percentage of lung cancer deaths occur in nonsmokers. Research suggests that they may get a different form of the disease than do smokers, one that may respond better to certain medications.
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Radiation treatment is also called radiotherapy. It's one way to treat lung cancer. One goal of radiation is to kill cancer cells while affecting as few normal cells as possible. Another goal is to use radiation as a way to ease symptoms that are caused from tumors, such as shortness of breath.
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Chemotherapy is the use of drugs. It can be used for several reasons. To kill cancer cells
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External radiation is the most common type of radiation given for lung cancer. You can get this as an outpatient in a hospital or a clinic. This type of radiation usually comes from a machine called a linear accelerator.
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Surgery can be done to both diagnose and treat lung cancer. In most cases, surgery is used if the cancer is found in an early stage. You will need to prepare. Work with your doctor to learn more about what to expect before, during, and after surgery.
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The doctor who directs your chemotherapy treatment is called a medical oncologist. Most people have chemotherapy in an outpatient part of the hospital, at the doctor's office, or at home. However, depending on the drugs you're taking and your health, you may need to stay in the hospital during treatment. Based on the drugs you take, you may take a pill form or get the drugs through an IV, or both.
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You have to be healthy enough to have surgery for it to be a good choice for you. If you have heart disease, your lung cancer surgeon may ask your heart doctor to give approval for your surgery. If you have emphysema or any type of lung disease, you may have to have tests before surgery. The doctors' goal is to make sure that the parts of your lung that will remain after surgery will support your breathing. Some types of tumors are not operable. That means they can't be taken out by surgery.
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Most people with lung cancer have both the symptoms of their cancer and the side effects from treatment. Although people with lung cancer can have different symptoms, there are a few symptoms that most people with lung cancer have in common at some point in their illness. Here's a list of what they include.
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Ask your oncologist and chemotherapy nurse for the details on each drug's side effects. Side effects are different for everyone and vary based on the drugs you take.
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Radiation affects normal cells as well as cancer cells. That means you may have some side effects. Usually, the risk for side effects is far less than the benefits of killing cancer cells. Many people have no side effects at all. If you do have them, they relate to the dose of radiation you get and where you get it. Generally, side effects are limited to the area that's been treated.
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After surgery, you may have to stay in the hospital for a few days. How long you must stay depends on these things.
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As soon as you are injected with Photofrin, you are at high risk for dangerous sunburn, so you need to protect your skin and eyes immediately after you are injected with it and for at least a month to 6 weeks afterward. Here's how you do that.
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Your doctor may suggest PDT if you have stage 0 lung cancer. That means you have a very early tumor that is smaller than a dime. And, it is sitting on the inside of your windpipe so that it is reachable via a tube passed through your airways. Your doctor may also suggest PDT if you have blockages in your airways from advanced lung cancer, meaning it has spread.
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You take targeted therapy drugs as pills every day. Usually you have this treatment alone, not combined with other treatment. People who respond usually do so within 10 days.
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Your doctor may suggest you have targeted therapy if you've had one or more courses of chemotherapy and it didn't work. Some studies showed that the drugs worked better in people who:
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For most people with small cell lung cancer, current treatments rarely cure the cancer. The same is true for most people with non-small cell lung cancer. Treatment will help ease symptoms and may improve your quality of life and help you live longer.
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The American Cancer Society estimates that about 160,00 people die of lung cancer each year. This is more than the deaths caused by the next three leading cancers—colon, breast, and prostate—combined. The current treatment of lung cancer often includes combinations of chemotherapy drugs. While chemotherapy often helps people live longer, with better quality-of-life, and may even cure lung cancer in a few patients, the outlook for someone with advanced lung cancer is generally not good. In most patients with advanced lung cancer, the tumor comes back or becomes resistant to chemotherapy. As a result, scientists are searching for new types of treatment that will more accurately target lung cancer cells with the goal of reducing the damage to normal cells. Gene therapy is one example of these targeted therapies. It's being studied in the lab and in a few clinical trials.
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At first, the information you receive about treatment options may seem overwhelming. You may ease the stress by allowing yourself the time to gather as much information as possible about your disease and its treatment and to discuss the issues with your doctors, nurses, and loved ones.
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You may have side effects from these drugs. Here's a list of common side effects from Iressa (gefitinib). They are listed from the most to the least common.
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Women are at greater risk of developing lung cancer than men, even if they have never smoked. Screening via a spiral CT scan can detect tumors while they are still treatable.
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It's likely that you will have physical concerns since your cancer may cause symptoms and you may have side effects from your treatment. In this section, you'll learn more about how to respond to some of the most common ones.
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Some people use statistics to try to know their chance of getting cancer. Or they use them to know the chance they can be cured. But statistics show what happens to large groups of people. Because no two people are alike, statistics can't be used to predict what will happen to a particular person.
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Prolonged exposure to radon gas may lead to an increased risk of lung cancer. Combined with smoking, the risk is much higher. Testing can reveal if there is an unsafe level of radon in a home's air.
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A guide to the tests available for screening colon, lung, and skin cancers, and how to determine whether they're right for you.
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A Harvard Medical School physician answers your question regarding mold spores as a potential risk factor for lung cancer.
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When you are being treated for lung cancer, it's likely that you will have side effects from that treatment and, perhaps, symptoms of the disease itself as well. For instance, the cancer can cause symptoms if the tumor puts pressure on an organ or body part and causes pain, or the tumor may interfere with the function of that organ or body part. The treatments to destroy cancer cells can harm healthy cells at the same time, and that means treatment can cause side effects.
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Lung cancer is caused by mutations in cell DNA, which is unconnected to the influenza virus or vaccine.
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Ex-smokers' risk of heart disease may eventually approach that of a lifetime nonsmoker, but their risk of lung cancer is less likely to fade, even after long periods of time.
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I'm a lung cancer survivor. My feet and hands are always hot, like they're on fire. Why could this be?
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Lung disease is any disease or disorder that occurs in the lungs or that causes the lungs to not work properly. There are three main types of lung disease:.Airway diseases-- These diseases affect the tubes(airways) that carry oxygen and other gase...
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Lung abscess is an acute or chronic infection of the lung, marked by a localized collection of pus, inflammation, and destruction of tissue.Lung abscess is the end result of a number of different disease processes ranging from fungal and bacterial...
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