As we know, if lung cancer is detected and treated early, the survival rate is still relatively high, and some people can even be cured. So why did Father Chen not discover his lung cancer in time for early treatment? The reason is that he may have overlooked the slight abnormal changes that usually occur in his body. After suffering from lung cancer, the body will usually show some traces, mainly including.
1. cough, about 2/3 of patients have this symptom, which can be mild dry cough or severe cough. Patients with chronic cough may have a change in the nature of cough, such as cough frequency or emergence of irritating dry cough, which is often not easy to attract patients’ attention
2. haemoptysis, with the sudden appearance of blood in the sputum, blood or small blood clots in long-term smokers
3.chest pain, early chest pain is lighter, manifested as intermittent non-severe dull pain or drilling pain, the location is not certain, and the relationship with breathing is not certain. If the cancer invades the pleura, the pain is more intense, continuous and fixed.
4. fever, unexplained fever and poor effect of antibiotic medication
5, dyspnea with progressive worsening.
6, unexplained chest tightness and shortness of breath.
7. hoarseness in a few patients.
8, hypertrophy of finger and toe joints, nail protrusion and curvature, often accompanied by pain.
9, gynecomastia, refers to male breast enlargement on one side or both sides as female. When these symptoms occur, especially for those who are over 40 years old and smoke a lot for a long time, they should consider the possibility of lung cancer and go to the hospital for a comprehensive examination in time.
In recent years, the incidence of lung cancer is on the rise, especially more and more female lung cancer patients, what are the factors that lead to the occurrence of lung cancer?
1. Smoking
Smoking is recognized as an important risk factor for lung cancer, and more than 80% of patients are related to smoking. The earlier the age of smoking, the more the amount of smoking and the longer the years of smoking, the higher the risk of lung cancer. Paper cigarettes contain more than 40 kinds of carcinogenic substances, and some domestic studies have concluded that people with a smoking index (i.e., the number of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years of smoking) of 400 or more, or people over the age of 45 who smoke more than 20 cigarettes per day, are considered to be at high risk for lung cancer. Passive smoking, commonly known as “secondhand smoke,” is also likely to cause lung cancer, and currently many families have husbands who smoke, and women are greatly exposed to the dangers of “secondhand smoke,” whose risk of lung cancer increases with the amount of secondhand smoke inhaled. There are even data proving that women’s risk of lung cancer due to “second-hand smoke” is three times higher than that of direct male smokers.
2.Air pollution
Air pollution includes small outdoor environment and large outdoor environment pollution. Various chemical carcinogenic components in indoor decoration materials, fuel combustion and cooking process may produce carcinogens. Indoor use of coal or its incomplete combustion products are risk factors for lung cancer, especially for female lung adenocarcinoma. Smoke released by heating during cooking is also a carcinogen. In addition, outdoor car exhaust and industrial exhaust are all carcinogens.
3.Occupational factors
Epidemiology, etiology and experiments have confirmed that carcinogenic substances include: inorganic arsenic, asbestos, chromium, nickel, coal tar, dichloromethyl ether, chloromethyl ether, ethylene chloride and so on. People who are exposed to the above carcinogenic substances in the occupational environment and smoke will have a much higher risk of lung cancer.
4.Ionizing radiation
Large doses of ionizing radiation can cause lung cancer, and the effects produced by different rays of radiation are different. The risk of lung cancer will increase for miners exposed to radon and its daughters in the environment.
5.Other risk factors
Patients with previous lung diseases such as tuberculosis; various bacterial and viral infections; dysfunction of body immune function and family genetic factors may also play a role in the occurrence of lung cancer.
Once lung cancer is detected, it should be treated in a timely manner! At the same time, one should eat more meat, fish, eggs, milk, beans, rice, flour, coarse grains and fresh vegetables and fruits to provide rich protein, sufficient heat and vitamins, strengthen the immunity of the body, improve the tolerance to surgery and radiotherapy, and speed up the recovery time. In addition, the diet should be diversified, and a small number of meals will help increase appetite and food intake and promote digestion and absorption.
More and more people are dying from lung cancer, so it is very necessary to prevent the occurrence of lung cancer. So how to prevent lung cancer in daily life?
One is to prohibit smoking, people with smoking history should control and prohibit smoking, stay away from tobacco, and reduce the proportion of smokers in the population, especially teenagers should be restricted from smoking.
Secondly, we should reduce environmental pollution. We should pay attention to opening windows and ventilation indoors to ensure the circulation of indoor air, choose environmentally friendly interior decoration materials, put more green plants indoors, choose suitable oils and use degassing hoods when cooking, and minimize the number of frying and deep-frying food to reduce the inhalation of harmful gases. When going out, it is best to wear a protective mask to avoid inhaling dust and polluted air, and go to dusty and noisy places as little as possible.
Third, occupational protection, workers in the dust-polluted environment, should wear a good mask or other protective masks to reduce the inhalation of harmful substances. In mines where radioactive ores are mined, effective protective measures should be taken to minimize the amount of radiation exposure to staff. For workers exposed to carcinogenic compounds, various practical and effective protective measures must be taken to avoid or reduce direct contact with carcinogenic factors, while workplace conditions should also be improved to reduce the accumulation of toxic substances in the air. Fourth, change the bad lifestyle and habits and keep a happy mood, because bad emotions can also change the endocrine function and immunity and cause the occurrence of diseases. Fifth, actively treat the infection of the underlying lung diseases such as tuberculosis, bacteria and viruses. Sixth, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables and foods rich in vitamin E and vitamin A. Seventh, regular health check-ups should be conducted, especially for high-risk groups or people with lung cancer in their family should have a check-up every six months or once a year for early detection and treatment.