Medicine and Health
Signs and symptoms of lung cancer
Most people with lung cancer don’t have early signs or symptoms. However, when symptoms develop, they are most likely to include:
- A cough that persists, worsens or produces blood
- Chest pain
- Shortness of breath
- Wheezing
- Fatigue
- Unexplained weight loss
Lung cancer patients may experience chest pain that worsens with deep breathing or coughing, and have frequent lung infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia.
When lung cancer spreads to other areas of the body, a process referred to as metastatis, symptoms may include bone pain, headache, weakness, numbness, jaundice or enlarged lymph nodes.
Treatment :-
- Stage 0: This cancer hasn’t spread into lung tissue, so surgery is typically the sole treatment. In most cases, doctors may remove a wedge of lung tissue.
- Stage 1: Surgery may be the only treatment needed for this stage, although a larger section of lung may need to be removed. Surgical options may include minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery, open surgery, or other techniques. If there’s evidence of cancer near the edge of the removed lung or near a lymph node, surgery may be followed by chemotherapy (cancer drugs) or radiation therapy (ionizing radiation treatments) such as steriotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).
- Stage 2: You may need surgery to remove a whole lobe of lung or the entire lung. Chemotherapy often follows surgery. If tests identify certain DNA changes (mutations) in the cancer cells, a type of precision drug treatment called targeted therapy may be used to attack the tumor cells. If cancer cells are found to contain certain types of proteins, your care team may add immunotherapy, which makes use of the body’s ability to fight cancer by helping the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells.
- Stage 3: For this stage, doctors typically order some combination of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy.
- Stage 4: These cancers are difficult to treat, and treatment options may depend on your body’s response to the process.
For limited-stage SCLC, treatment may include:
- Chemotherapy
- Radiation therapy
- Surgery (in some cases, this may be performed before chemotherapy and radiation therapy)
For extensive-stage SCLC, primary treatments include:
- Chemotherapy
- Immunotherapy
- Radiation therapy
Patients with either limited- or extensive-stage disease may benefit from clinical trials for new treatments.