January is Global Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and lung cancer is now the number one cancer worldwide, with more deaths from lung cancer each year than from the three major cancers of breast, prostate and bowel combined. Compared with other cancers, lung cancer is more like a “latent killer”. Most patients are diagnosed with lung cancer when it is already at an advanced stage, i.e., the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body. If diagnosed at early stage, nearly 70% of patients can survive for more than 5 years, and some of them even have the hope of cure. Myth 1: Treating lung cancer as tuberculosis Patients always hope that they have a “curable disease” when they find lung lesions, and are afraid to use further means to confirm whether it is a tumor. Since some lung cancers and tuberculosis are difficult to distinguish on imaging, for example, tuberculoma is easily confused with peripheral lung cancer, tuberculosis of the lymph nodes of the lung is easily confused with central lung cancer, and old tuberculosis is easily confused with scar cancer, etc., misdiagnosis and mistreatment or delayed treatment are very likely to occur in clinical practice. From the perspective of symptoms, cough, night sweats, afternoon low fever and wasting are common in tuberculosis; while the symptoms of lung cancer are not very specific, and the most common one is cough or blood in sputum, which are also easily confused. Myth 2: It is fine if you take a chest X-ray. Nowadays, many people have a chest X-ray during physical examination, thinking that it is fine if the chest X-ray is normal. In fact, otherwise, from the point of view of specialist doctors, it is recommended that people over 40 years old, it is best to do a CT physical examination once a year. Because the ordinary chest X-ray, the heart, muscles, bones, etc. are layered together from front to back, if the physician is not experienced enough, it is impossible to detect the lesion. The CT examination, similar to cutting a carrot, is a layer of performance, the results are more accurate and reliable. Myth 3: Small lesions are early stage lung cancer Many patients think that small lesions are early stage lung cancer when they have preliminary examinations. In fact, some lung cancers are more prone to metastasis, such as small cell lung cancer, adenocellular lung cancer, etc. The cancer cells can easily metastasize to many parts such as head, liver and bones. In contrast, squamous cell carcinoma is less metastatic. Myth 4: Surgery is useless Lung cancer patients are most afraid of open-heart surgery, and sometimes they would rather choose chemotherapy than surgery, or even easily believe in the “theory of uselessness of surgery” and miss the best time for surgery.