Lung Cancer
Not only A Smoker's Enemy
What Is Lung Cancer?
What Body System Is Being Effect?
What Are The Symptoms?
- persistant cough
- chest pain
- voice change
- spit streaked with blood
- recurrent pneumonia or bronchitis
How Are You Diagnosed?
The process begins with the patient getting a detailed chest scan that has 300 separate cross-section images of the lungs. Next, a computer evaluates those images and creates a 3-D model of each lung and it's individual airways. Using this model, doctors can distinguish the exact measurements of each suspicious tumor. Lastly, the computer finds out the specific path to the tumor, which will help guide the probe to it's target.
What Is Treatment Like?
Chemotherapy has been around since the early 1900's. It is a systemic treatment which means that drugs travel throughout the body to reach cancer cells, wherever they are. Unlike radiation and surgery, which are consider local treatments because they only act in one area of the body. More than 100 chemotherapy drugs are used today to help stop cancer from spreading. There are four different ways that the drugs can be given:
- Orally: The person getting treatment swallows a pill, capsule, or liquid form of chemo medication.
- Injection: The drugs are injected into a muscle or under the skin using a needle or syringe.
- Intrathecally: A needle is inserted into the fluid-filled space surrounding the spinal cord and the chemo drugs are injected into the spinal fluid.
- Intravenously: A needle is inserted into a vein and the medicine flows from an IV bag or bottle into the bloodstream.