Coughing and chest pains: Lung cancer alert

  Spring and autumn are the seasons when respiratory tract infections are common. Patients with respiratory tract infections may experience cough, fever, chest pain, shortness of breath, shortness of breath and other symptoms. However, among the patients with these symptoms, there may be some lung cancer patients. Because the incidence of lung cancer has risen to the first place in large and medium-sized cities in China. Generally speaking, symptoms such as cough and chest pain caused by upper respiratory tract infection will abate or subside after two weeks with or without treatment. If the cough and chest pain persist for more than two weeks and there is no definite reason to explain it. It should be taken seriously. Especially if the cough is accompanied by blood in the sputum, it should be highly suspected that the patient has lung cancer. Advise the patient to visit a specialist hospital or a large general hospital. Follow the doctor’s advice and undergo a series of tests. Doctors usually follow the principle of easy first, then difficult, non-invasive first, then invasive to do a comprehensive examination.  The examinations include sputum exfoliation cell examination, chest X-ray, chest CT, fibrinoscopy, mass aspiration, mediastinoscopy and so on. In case of lung cancer, head MRI, whole body bone scan, PET-CT, etc. will also be examined.  Lung cancer, also known as bronchial lung cancer, is currently the number one cancer killer in the world. There are 1.2 million new cases worldwide every year, and one person dies from lung cancer every 30 seconds. In China, lung cancer is also the cancer with the highest incidence and mortality rate. According to information provided by the National Cancer Control Research Office of the Ministry of Health, the number of lung cancer cases in China increased by 120,000 between 2000 and 2005. According to epidemiologists, if smoking and air pollution are not controlled, by 2025, China will have more than 1 million lung cancer patients each year, making it the world’s number one lung cancer country. At present, lung cancer has become a common and frequent disease that endangers people’s health. Among them, non-small cell lung cancer accounts for 80% of all lung cancer cases. The symptoms of lung cancer appear very late, and most patients are already in advanced stage when they are diagnosed with lung cancer, and the cancer cells have often spread to other parts of the body, so less than 10% of patients can survive for more than 5 years after being diagnosed with lung cancer, and most of them die within 6 months.  Therefore, detection of early stage lung cancer is the key to improve the treatment effect. You should pay attention to health checkups in normal times. Pay attention to cough, chest pain and other symptoms. If unfortunately you have lung cancer, there is no need to be overly nervous. You should believe in science, not to seek medical help in a hurry, and not to avoid medical treatment for obscure diseases. Some patients believe in some treatment methods carried out by some informal hospitals and are unwilling to accept surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatments. They believe that these treatments have greater side effects and their efficacy is not certain. Nowadays, we strictly follow the clinical guidelines (norms) of lung cancer in China to implement various examinations and treatments. First of all, comprehensive examination and accurate staging are the key to treatment. According to the stage, we decide which treatment should be implemented. The treatment items include: surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, Chinese herbal medicine, immunotherapy, etc. Sometimes it is necessary to combine or sequentially implement the above treatment items. If the tumor has recurrence or metastasis. We also follow the clinical guidelines (norms) to implement the treatment.  Some patients who cannot or do not want to receive chemotherapy may consider oral anti-lung cancer targeted drugs such as Erythroxel or Troche. They are very effective for patients with mutations in the EGFR of cancer cells. It gives hope that lung cancer can be transformed from an incurable disease to a chronic disease.