Lung Cancer - Know More About It

Good evening.

My name is Dr. Arunesh Kumar. Today I am going to talk to you about a burning problem called lung cancer. As the name sounds very worrying this is a condition this is a cancer of the lungs which unfortunately when diagnosed most of the time it is in an advanced stage. The symptoms of lung cancer are a cough which is not responding despite adequate treatment for more than 3 weeks, coughing up blood, losing unintentional weight loss, noticing lumps and bumps in your body and progressively breathlessness and hoarse voice. As you'd imagine lung cancer is a diagnosis of exclusion and we as a physician have to have a very high index of suspicion if that's the case. One of the most and biggest risk factors of lung cancer is smoking.

If somebody has smoked for more than 20 pack years then it is a risk factor for lung cancer. If somebody if you smoke and have had any of the warning symptoms of lung cancer an early medical help needs to be taken. The first most important investigation which we do in these cases is a chest X-ray. Chest X-ray is a very easy and important and well available tool to tell us if something wrong is going on in the lungs. There are enough data worldwide now where we see that lung cancer when diagnosed is mostly in an advanced stage which is called stage 4. There are different types of lung cancers. Some type of lung cancers are associated with smokers and others don't. Apart from smoking, the pollution and different trade one works in have also been incriminated. Early diagnosis of cancer and early management is crucial to it. Early stages of lung cancer can be nearly cured with surgeries as the affected part of the lung can be taken off via surgical methods.

The later stages are managed with surgery as well as chemotherapy and radiotherapy which we decide in conjunction with the oncologist. The most single important thing in lung cancer is to diagnose it early and hence there is a high time that the public gets aware of the possible symptoms of this disease. If there is an early presentation the treatment is also good. So, I hope my this talk increasing the awareness about lung cancer. If you or in your surrounding come across these symptoms please see the pulmonologist at the nearest opportunity of your own.

Thank you very much!