If you physically examine the presence of a shadow in an organ, what disease do you think of? I think everyone will immediately think of two words in their hearts: cancer!
I have to say that in recent years, mainland cancer has indeed entered a high incidence period, especially the incidence rate of lung cancer is quite high, ranking first in all internal organ cancer, and because the early symptoms of lung cancer are not typical enough, it is difficult to attract patients' attention, so there are nearly 2/3 of lung cancer patients in the clinic, and they have entered the advanced stage when diagnosed.
Therefore, the prognosis of lung cancer in mainland China is quite poor, and nearly 700,000 patients die of lung cancer every year. Because of this, more and more people have begun to pay attention to physical examination and related anti-cancer screening, and thus have a fear of cancer.
In real life, when some people perform lung X-ray examinations and CT scans, they find that the imaging report says "there is a nodule shadow in the lungs", and before further diagnosis by the doctor, they arbitrarily think that they are suffering from lung cancer, and then they have pessimism, fear, and even despair.
So the question is, there is a shadow in the lungs, is it really cancer, can cancer really be directly diagnosed?
1, shadow is only a medical term: when performing various imaging tests, whether the nodules or shadows are described on the report, it is not actually a diagnosis of the disease itself, but a medical term on the imaging report.
You know, there are many diseases that cause shadowing of the lungs, including pneumonia caused by common pathogen infections, tuberculosis, lung cysts, lung tumors and so on.
Even if a large lung nodule is found, it cannot be directly answered by imaging tests, it only indicates that there is an abnormal mass in the lungs;
2. Consider the patient's symptoms: After the lung shadow is detected, the doctor will consider a comprehensive consideration in combination with multiple aspects, such as the patient's specific symptoms, family and personal disease history.
If the patient has obvious lung cancer symptoms, such as long-term sputum with blood, repeated small amounts of hemoptysis, repeated fever, etc., it is necessary to conduct a pathological examination in time to clarify the nature of the mass.
In addition, if the patient has a long history of chronic lung disease and a family history of lung cancer, this is also a high-risk group for lung cancer, and after the lung shadow is detected, it is also necessary to be vigilant;
3. There are steps in the diagnosis of cancer: imaging examinations have found lung nodules, and the nature of the nodules is very similar to that of cancerous changes.
However, doctors do not judge directly through imaging tests, but recommend that patients perform the next targeted examination, that is, to determine the nature of the mass, such as low-dose spiral CT screening, lung puncture examination, pathological biopsy, etc.
In clinical view, pathological biopsy is the trump card for diagnosing cancer, which can fully understand the nature of mass cells, pathological types, staging, etc. Only after a pathological examination can it be determined whether the patient has developed cancer.
In a word, whether there are shadows, spots or nodules in the lungs, it does not mean that you are absolutely suffering from cancer, it is likely to be caused by other diseases. Lung nodules, in particular, are, for the most part, benign.
However, after all, the actual situation of each patient is different, so after the lung shadow is detected, the patient should consult the doctor in time to see if the next step of the examination is needed to clarify the specific nature of the shadow.