Lung Cancer Resources

When our body cell start multiplying without any reason or control they form a mass it is called tumor. Tumors can be benign or malignant. Malignant tumors are called cancer. When cells in the lung start multiplying without any order or control the person is said to have a cancer of lungs.

There are two different types of lung cancer. One is small cell lung cancer and the other is non-small cell lung cancer. Small cell lung cancer spreads quickly and grows very rapidly. Sometimes it is also referred by the name Oat cell cancer.

Smoking is the root cause of small cell lung cancer. Though lung cancer is quite common this type of cancer is rarely found in non smokers. The behavior of this cancer is the most aggressive.

Small cell lung cancer generally starts in the bronchi or the air tubes in middle of the chest. The cell can form large tumors and it can spread really rapidly to the other parts of the body such as the liver, bone or brain.

The symptoms of this cancer are persistent cough, chest pain, blood in sputum, loss of appetite, weight loss wheezing, and shortness of breath. Sometimes the patient may experience facial swelling, fever; sometimes the patient may have difficulty in swallowing and may notice nail abnormalities.

There are many tests to confirm the diagnosis of cancer. The medical care giver may ask you some questions and your medical history, if you are a smoker etc. According to the symptoms and the history chest x-ray, CT scan, MRI, sputum test, blood test etc. will be performed.

In some cases a small tissue from the affected part will be removed for biopsy. Once the tests are done and the pathological reports confirm the presence of cancer the treatment starts.

Chemotherapy is the most common treatment for small cell lung cancer. It stops the cell from growing rapidly and spreading quickly. Generally two or more chemotherapy drugs are given as an injection through the vein. Chemotherapy is given in one to three day period. Then the wait is for three weeks so that the body can recover from the side effects. There is no fix time table or duration for the treatment. It differs from patient to patient. It also depends on how the body reacts to the treatment and how cancer is responding to it.

Tags: lung cancer, small cell

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 am and is filed under Small Cell Lung Cancer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.