Small nodules in the lungs may be early stage of lung cancer When talking about lung cancer, many people will think of symptoms such as cough, blood in sputum and chest pain. However, if you wait until you experience these discomforts before you think of seeking medical treatment, if it is really lung cancer, you have already missed the best time to treat it – the early stage of lung cancer. How to detect “lung cancer” as early as possible? According to the latest figures released by Guangzhou CDC, lung cancer ranks first in the incidence and mortality rate of malignant tumors in Guangzhou, which shows that lung cancer is very harmful to the residents. Some of the early stages of lung cancer manifest as nodules (nodules may also be benign lesions, with malignant nodules accounting for 30%-40%), when patients often do not have any discomfort. If they are detected at this time, and the smaller the nodules are, the more treatment means are available and the better the treatment effect is. Therefore, regular medical checkups are necessary, and a significant proportion of early lung cancer patients are detected during medical checkups. X-ray screening is not as effective as low-dose CT It is understood that most units of physical examination mostly use chest X-ray as the diagnosis of lung cancer screening, but the sensitivity of X-ray is far from enough. Chest nodules generally have to be as large as 1.5 cm to 2 cm before they may be revealed in X-ray. Moreover, some special nodules appear only as patchy or frosted glass shadows on the image, which cannot be detected by X-ray examination at all. Therefore, clinicians recommend that people with high risk of lung cancer should be regularly screened for lung cancer by low-dose CT. Low-dose CT can “detect” nodules as large as 0.5 cm, and some CTs with high sensitivity can even detect nodules as large as 0.3-0.4 cm, which is the earliest stage of lung cancer. One study showed that early detection of lung cancer by low-dose CT on 50,000 people can reduce the mortality rate by 20%, that is, 1 out of 5 people can die! The smaller the nodule, the more treatment is available and the better the outcome. Once a nodule exceeds two centimeters, it is often accompanied by local lymphatic invasion, and chemotherapy is necessary after surgery, which is much more physically and financially taxing, and the 5-year survival rate decreases significantly. Why should we emphasize low-dose CT here? The radiation of low-dose CT is very small, only 10 times that of ordinary chest X-ray, and the damage to human body is very small or even negligible, which is more suitable for use as health screening for the general population. The First Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University East Hospital is also preparing to carry out low-dose CT health screening of the chest for the general population in the near future. Cooks are also at high risk for lung cancer People over 40 years old should have annual low-dose CT chest screening, which costs about 500 RMB and is affordable for most families. For those at high risk of lung cancer, screening for lung cancer should start earlier. Who is at high risk for lung cancer? Studies have proven that long-term heavy smokers are 10 to 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, and the younger the age of starting to smoke, the higher the probability of developing lung cancer. In addition, smoking not only directly affects one’s own health, but also has a negative impact on the health of the people around you, leading to a significant increase in the prevalence of lung cancer in passive smokers. Therefore, if you are surrounded by “smokers” and you are often forced to inhale second-hand smoke, then you are also at high risk of lung cancer. Third-hand smoke can also be harmful to human health (especially to the health of infants and children). Third-hand smoke” means that wherever you smoke, the harmful particles in the smoke will be trapped in your hair, skin, clothes, carpets, sofas and car seat covers, and when you come into contact with your children after smoking, they will still be exposed to the harmful substances produced by burning cigarettes in the environment. arsenic, lead, carbon monoxide, polonium and more than 10 other highly carcinogenic compounds. Here is a reminder that if you are the spoon in the family, you should also be screened regularly for lung cancer. Chinese food culture emphasizes frying, stir-frying, cooking and deep-frying, but frying and deep-frying can cause high levels of benzpyrene in the air. Especially in those kitchens with poor fume extraction, people who often fry, stir-fry, cook and deep-fry and feel the stimulation of fumes in their eyes have a significantly increased risk of lung cancer. Experiments have proven that fumes at temperatures of 270°C to 280°C have mutagenic effects. Since women cook more, cooking fumes increase their risk of lung cancer. In addition, people who have a family history of lung cancer, work in a confined environment for a long time or work in an environment with a lot of dust particles for a long time, and have underlying diseases such as diabetes are also at high risk of lung cancer due to low immunity.