All About Lung Cancer

Introduction

Lung cancer is very serious. It can affect the rest of the systems in the body and at that point it is generally not curable. One thing that could happen to the body as you get lung cancer could be having headaches and that could mean the cancer has spread to the brain. Another thing that could happen is that your blood could clot.

Symptoms

If people have lung cancer, they can experience the symptoms below:

• Coughing

• Chest pain

• Shortness of breath

• Wheezing

• Coughing up blood

• Constant tiredness

• Weight loss with unknown cause

• Swollen lymph nodes in chest near lungs

Some of the symptoms listed above can actually happen with other sicknesses as well. You should probably talk to your doctor if you have these symptoms to find out the cause.

Causes

Like any other cancer, lung cancer starts when the old cells don't die and new, weird, malformed, cells start to grow. (Learn More) The only exception with lung cancer is that it starts in the lungs. Some of the risks to getting lung cancer are cigarettes, secondhand smoke, and other tobacco-involved situations. Make sure you avoid and stay away from tobacco at all costs because it will definitely increase your risk of lung cancer.

Treatments

Lung cancer doesn't have only one treatment. Different treatments can be done depending on the type of lung cancer and how far it spread. Here are some of the treatments below.

• Surgery: When doctors do surgery to the patients with lung cancer, they typically cut out the cancer tissue that is inside of the body near the lungs.

• Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy is when the doctors give the patient special medicines to either shrink or dissolve the cancer tissue. They could also put medicine in your veins.

• Radiation Therapy: Radiation therapy is when the doctors use very high energy rays, which are similar to x- rays, to burn out or dissolve the cancer.

• Targeted Therapy: Targeted therapy is similar to chemotherapy but it is more about making sure the cancer doesn't spread to other areas and trapping it.