Introduction
A small lung cancer is one of the cancer diseases in which malignant cells form in the tissues of the lung. It is one of the two types of lung cancer and comprises the 15% of all lung cancers cases while non-small cell lung cancer, which is the other type of lung cancer, comprises the remaining 85%. There are two sections of the lung; the left lung and the right lung. The left lung has two lobes and smaller than the right lung. The right lung, which is larger, has three lobes. The left and right lungs bring oxygen into the body when breathing in and take out carbondioxide when breathing out.
History
A small lung cancer is highly aggressive, moves faster than non-small cell, responds well to chemotherapy and radiation, but carries a very poor prognosis or the chance of recovery. The prognosis and treatment options depend on the stage of the cancer, whether it is on the chest cavity only or has spread to other parts in the body, the patient’s gender and general health and the blood level of Lactate Dehydrogenase or LDH. LDH is a substance found in the blood that may indicate cancer when the level is higher than normal. Non-small lung cancer generally grows more slowly, responds less well to chemotherapy and radiation, but has a slightly better prognosis. When you experience shortness of breath, weight loss for unknown reason, chest pain that doesn’t go away, coughing up blood and worse, swelling of the face and neck, these are just some of the tips in detecting a small lung cancer.
Features
Surgery is generally used if it can cure the cancer like the small lung cancer. If anybody who has cancer and is cured, it is because of an operation that was undergone. But mostly surgery is most useful in cancers that have not spread, or even if the cancer has spread to only one area or is small, then it may be possible to remove it completely with surgery. But it is not a guarantee that the cancer will go away. Among the procedures employed to surgically remove cancer are; wedge resection, in which a small section of the lung, including the tumor, is removed; segmental resection, in which a larger section of the lung is removed; lobectomy, in which an entire lobe of one lung is removed and pneumonectomy, in which the entire lung is removed. But these procedures depend on the tolerance of the patients and do not have additional complications such as severe bronchitis or heart disease.
Tips and comments
However, to cure a small lung cancer depends on the status of the disease whether it is already extensive or not. Patients with extensive disease small lung cancer are rarely curable with currently available standard treatment strategies. Because the cancer has spread outside the chest, it cannot be treated with radiation or removed surgically. Small lung cancer is very responsive to chemotherapy and the current standard treatment of extensive disease is chemotherapy. But if a cancer like the small lung cancer has only spread to a small area, there is a possibility that it can be cured.
