At present, lung cancer has the highest incidence and mortality rate in China. According to data released by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2020, China added 820,000 new lung cancer patients in 2020, and its deaths reached 710,000. This means that in China, on average, one person gets lung cancer every minute and 1 patient dies of lung cancer. Therefore, early diagnosis and early treatment are crucial for lung cancer.
On April 19th, Professor Liao Hongying, Director of Thoracic Surgery of our hospital, popularized the various symptoms of lung cancer for everyone through online live broadcast, and further improved the awareness of early lung cancer screening among netizens.
01
Doctors remind that lung cancer will have these symptoms!
Although the incidence of lung cancer is high, lung cancer patients do not always show specific symptoms, and sometimes do not feel any discomfort, which leads to the fact that once found, it is often advanced lung cancer, which also means that the best treatment time is lost.
Therefore, when the body has the following symptoms, it is necessary to be vigilant of the signals it sends and screen for lung tumors as soon as possible.
1. Early symptoms: cough
Lung cancer patients often present with cough first, because the bronchi is closely related to the lungs, and when the tumor grows in the bronchi or near the bronchi, it can cause a violent cough. In addition, lung cancer can also cause symptoms such as low-grade fever and blood coughing, which is due to tumor changes that cause capillaries to rupture and blood and sputum mixed together, resulting in symptoms of coughing up blood and sputum.
2. Other symptoms: tumor compression
Chest pain: The tumor grows into the sternum or ribs, or grows inside the chest wall, causing pain.
Asthma: Lung cancer patients due to tumors too much of the lung tissue compression, will cause bronchial blockage or produce a large number of pleural effusions, resulting in breathing difficulties, chest tightness, asthma and other symptoms.
Swelling: The tumor compresses the large blood vessels, which may cause difficulties in the reflux of blood vessels, such as the obstruction of the upper vena cava, causing swelling and pain in the face and neck and upper extremities.
Hoarseness: Hoarseness and difficulty speaking occur as the recurrent laryngeal nerve is invaded by a tumor or when a metastatic lymph node compresses the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
3. Advanced symptoms: tumor metastasis
Brain metastases: lung cancer is often accompanied by brain metastases, and if patients have severe headaches, vomiting, impaired consciousness, and walking instability, further investigation is needed to check whether they are caused by lung tumors.
Bone metastasis: Bone is also the main metastatic lesion of lung cancer, mainly occurring in the ribs, but also seen in the spine, skull and other parts. The main symptoms of bone metastases are severe, unbearable pain in the bones and pathological fractures.
Liver metastasis: The liver is also a common metastase site for lung cancer. Patients usually experience loss of appetite, nausea, weight loss, pain in the liver area, jaundice, and ascites.
02
3 "strange" symptoms appear for no reason
Or the cancer has penetrated deep into the lungs
All of the above conditions are common symptoms of lung cancer, but sometimes atypical symptoms such as "clubbing fingers" can also occur.
1, pestle finger
Some patients have swollen fingertips or toes, making the fingers and toes look like a "radish head", a condition clinically known as "clubbing fingers". In fact, it is a pulmonary hypertrophy joint disease, which is a "extrapulmonary manifestation" of lung cancer. Clubbing is also associated with bronchiectasis and congenital heart disease, but lung cancer is the most common cause.
2. Gynecomastia
Under normal circumstances, the breast enlargement of adult male patients may also be the "extrapulmonary manifestation" of lung cancer. After the appearance of this symptom, do not ignore, especially patients with lung cancer risk factors, be sure to perform lung disease related examinations to see if there is a tumor on the lungs.
In addition, the "strange" symptoms of lung cancer also include a full moon face (the face is fat like the fifteenth moon), centripetal obesity (a kind of obesity centered on the heart and abdomen, but the limbs are not obese), and excessive secretion of antidiuretic hormone, resulting in hyponatremia, causing dizziness, drowsiness, anorexia, and even coma.
Finally, Professor Liao Hongying suggested that in order to effectively prevent lung cancer, we should try to stay away from high-risk factors for lung cancer such as smoking, oil smoke, physical and chemical pollution, and at the same time, we should adhere to exercise, regular work and rest, ensure adequate sleep, maintain a positive and optimistic attitude, eat more fruits and vegetables, high-protein foods, comprehensive nutrition, and balanced diet.
This article guides the experts
Chief Physician of Esophageal Surgery and Thoracic Surgery Liao Hongying
Section Chair, Chief Physician, Professor, MD, PhD/Postdoctoral Co-Supervisor
Professional introduction: Engaged in clinical work in thoracic surgery for more than 20 years. The first batch of outstanding young medical talents in Guangdong Province, Lingnan famous doctors, Yangcheng good doctors. He has been studying in the United States for more than a year, and has studied at the Mayo Clinic, Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard University Massachusetts General Hospital and City of Hope National Medical Center, learning minimally invasive techniques of thoracic surgery and comprehensive treatment of tumors.
Areas of expertise: years of research on the standardized and individualized treatment of chest tumors, good at various benign and malignant tumors of the chest such as lung cancer, esophageal cancer, lung metastases, small nodules of the lungs, mediastinal tumors and chest wall tumors of various minimally invasive surgeries and complex and difficult surgeries, pneumothorax, bullae, emphysema, elderly and hypocardiopulmonary function patients with perioperative treatment, other chest benign diseases such as funnel chest, hiatal hernia, lung isolation, achalasia, sweaty hand, He has rich experience in the treatment of bronchiectasis and myasthenia gravis, and the main research direction is the clinical and basic research of common tumors of the chest such as lung cancer and esophageal cancer. In recent years, he has devoted himself to finding molecular markers and gene targets for lung cancer and esophageal cancer, providing a theoretical and experimental basis for the development of drug targets for clinical treatment.
Social positions: He is also a member of the National Clinical Medical Research Center-Respiratory Tumor Collaboration Group, a vice chairman of the Pulmonary Nodule Professional Committee of the Rehabilitation Association of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, the vice president of the Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Branch of the Chinese Geriatrics Association, the chairman of the Guangdong Clinical Medical Association Lung Tumor Precision Treatment Specialist Alliance, the vice chairman of the Thoracic Tumor Professional Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Primary Medical Association, the vice chairman of the Multidisciplinary Diagnosis and Treatment Committee of Esophageal Diseases of the Guangdong Chest Disease Society, and the Standing Committee member of the Thoracic Surgery Branch of the Guangdong Medical Doctor Association. Member of the Standing Committee of the Pulmonary Oncology Branch of the Guangdong Medical Association, Member of the Standing Committee of the Thoracic Surgery Branch of the Guangdong Medical Industry Association, Member of the Lung Cancer Professional Committee of the Guangdong Anti-Cancer Association, Member of the Standing Committee of the Pulmonary Nodule and Thoracic Tumor Committee of the Guangdong Health Management Society, Member of the Thoracic Surgery Group of the Guangdong Provincial Minimally Invasive Surgery Society, Member of the Esophageal Cancer Professional Group of the Thoracic Surgery Branch of the Guangdong Medical Association, Member of the Robot and Minimally Invasive Surgery Committee of the Guangdong Thoracic Tumor Research Association, and Member of the Immunotherapy Committee of the Guangdong Chest Disease Society.
Visits: Wednesday morning
Thank you to Attending Physician Yang Xingping of Thoracic Surgery for their support of this article
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Yuanquan
Preliminary: Daisy.com
Review: Jian Wenyang
Final Judge: Zhu Changping
Approved release: Li Hanrong
Part of the content of the article comes from the media of the Medical Association
The picture /figure snail creative, some of the pictures from the network