Lung Cancer Early Detection

Signs and Symptoms

Signs and symptoms are absent in the early stages of lung cancer. Nonspecific symptoms such as cough, chest pain, recurrent pneumonias, unintentional weight loss, anorexia, hoarseness, dyspnea, wheezing, and blood in the sputum (hemoptysis) appear when tumors are usually advanced and frequently incurable. Indeed, at the present time, lung cancer is most commonly diagnosed by accident. Not rarely, lung masses may reach rather astonishingly large sizes without manifesting any pulmonary signs or symptoms.

Diagnosis

Despite the recognition of the fact that there are well defined segments of the population at a higher risk of acquiring lung cancer, the diagnosis at a curable stage is currently only made by accident. During a regular check up or more commonly, in an x-ray performed for unrelated causes. There is a second group of patients, those who present with symptoms and usually have an advance stage and likely incurable disease. There are well defined groups of individuals that are at a high risk of acquiring cancer of the lung. For instance prevalence of lung cancer is significantly higher in patients with more than 30 pack-years (one pack a day for 30 years or 2 packs a day for 15 years) combined with spirometric (spirometry is a part of the pulmonary function tests that measures lung volumes) evidence of airflow obstruction (FEV-1 less than 70% of predicted). However pulmonary function tests (PFT's) are normal in 50% of smokers with lung cancer.

Needle aspiration or biopsy of the tumor is required for definitive diagnosis. Flexible fiber optic bronchoscopy, mediastinoscopy, and thoracoscopic or open biopsy are some of the methods to corroborate the diagnosis. Chest x-rays, CT scans, and positron emission tomography (PET) are important diagnostic procedures.