Lung Cancer Radiation

Lung cancer may also be the most tragic cancer because in most cases, it might have been prevented, 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Lung cancer has long been the most common cause of cancer death in men and since 1987 it has also become the most common cause of cancer death in women

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Lung cancer (LC) can be treated successfully if it is diagnosed before the cancerous cells spread to other areas of the body. For the non-small cell version of the disease, doctors will usually suggest surgery as the primary form of treatment. However, curing the disorder with surgery is only possible if the diseased cells remain localized.

Lung cancer currently ranks as the leading cause of cancer related death in men and women. Although continuing to decline in men, incidence rates remain stable in women, following an increase throughout the 1990's. Trends in lung cancer related deaths, are largely attributed to trends in smoking over the past several decades. Your treatment options at a glance.

Lung cancer may be treated by a variety of therapies including surgery, but chemotherapy and radiation treatments are used extensively to treat the disease whether surgery takes place or not. Chemotherapy Chemotherapy involves drug medication which is designed to kill fast growing cells in the body - cancer cells are fast growing and it is this uncontrolled growth which causes tumors to develop.

When lung cancer develops, it is critical to diagnose it while the disease is still in its early stages. As it progresses from Stage I to Stage IV, the available treatment options become limited. What's more, the chances of treating it successfully diminish. In Stage I, the cancerous cells are still localized to the original site. During Stages II and III, they have begun to spread to other areas of the chest.

One of the more confusing words we employ when talking about lung cancer is the word "inoperable." For those of us in medicine, it assists us leave individuals in a category. Inoperable indicates that surgery is not the suggested treatment. However, sitting as a patient on the other side of the table, these words can sound completely different. They can sound as a frightening synonym to terminal.

We all know that smoking kills, but what many don't realize is that it is exposure to Radon that causes the lung cancer that inflicts most smokers, and is the single greatest factor of lung cancer in non-smokers. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of the Surgeon General have estimated that radon causes as many as 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year. Lung cancer induced by Radon costs over $2 billion dollars every year in direct and indirect healthcare costs.

The foremost cause of cancer death in the United States is cancer of the lung. As maintained by the American Cancer Society, there are as many as 170,000 new cases each year, and it kills more people than prostrate, breast, and colon cancer combined. Nodules in the lung are small, brownish, round spots and are quite common. Most are benign, but a few may stand for the early stages of lung cancer.