Lung Cancer in a nutshell
Lung cancer is a malignant lung tumor. It is considered the most common type of cancer in men and the third in women. In 2018, around two million (2,000,000) we diagnosed and reported.
It always starts with lung (primary lung cancer) and metastasized if not diagnosed early to nearby tissues and other organs in the body.
There are two main types of lung cancer:
- Small-cell lung carcinoma (SCLC)
- Non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC)
SCLC is more serious and fatal especially if left untreated. It composed of much smaller cells and accounts for about 20% of lung cancer. It starts in the airways in the center of the chest, the bronchi, and it is rarely to be seen in non-smokers. It has a higher metastases rate versus NSCLC.
Several risk factors have been identified and linked to lung cancer including:
- Smoking
- Previous radiation therapy
- Exposure to radon gas
- Exposure to secondhand smoke
- Exposure to asbestos and other carcinogens
- Family history of lung cancer
Usually, there are no signs or symptoms in the early stages of lung cancer, but many patients start to develop some symptoms like:
- Persistent breathlessness
- Persistent cough
- Coughing up blood
- Unexplained tiredness
- Weight loss
- Pain while breathing or coughing
- Chest pain
- Hoarseness
- Bone pain
- Headache
Treatment or therapy plans depend on several factors like caner stage and medication & infrastructure availability and it includes a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Recently the FDA approved some immunotherapy molecules like Pembrolizumab as monotherapy in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as first-line therapy in those with a tumor proportion score (TPS) of 50% or greater and in subsequent lines of therapy in those with a TPS of 1% or greater.
