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Lung cancer is now the most common form of cancer in the United States. Lung cancer causes more death than any other cancer cases among men and women in this country. Fourteen percent of all cancer records in the United States are lung cancer cases and twenty-eight percent of cancer deaths are from lung cancer patients.
Major causes of lung cancers are cigarette smoking and breathing impure air including asbestos exposure. Asbestos exposure can lead to Mesothelioma, a cancer in the lining of the lungs or abdominal cavity.
Severity of lung cancer depends greatly to the amount of time a person spent smoking. As compared to non-smokers, smokers are at high risk of lung cancer. In fact, smokers are twenty-two percent more at risk of acquiring lung cancer than their non-smoking counterpart.
Additionally, because lung cancer symptoms do not manifest until it is already on its advanced stage, minor lung cancer symptoms are often ignored.
This is because minor lung cancer symptom such as frequent coughing is often associated with itchiness in the throat. Smokers believe that this is an ordinary occurrence among smokers, thus they are not alarmed until they feel more severe lung cancer symptoms.
When this happens, truly the lung cancer symptom shows because of the advanced stage of the cancer. The uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the lungs is already manifesting through the lung cancer symptoms and by this time, secondary cancer cells are already developing in other organs of the body.
Severe lung cancer symptoms include persistent coughing, chronic chest pain, which is associated with shortness of breathing, wheezing and hoarseness of the voice.
Often, because of the similarity of lung cancer symptoms to bronchial asthma, people who self medicate usually try to treat the shortness of breathing with asthma medication.
The medication is thus useless because i
t is not working on the actual disease. It is thus imperative that minor discomforts such as shortness of breathing be brought to the attention of a competent doctor for evaluation. This will avoid treating a disease with a different medication such as in self-medicating patients.
Other lung cancer symptoms are blood in sputum, recurring cases of pneumonia or bronchitis, neck and facial swelling, sudden weight loss and constant feeling of fatigue. All these lung cancer symptoms occur on the terminal stage of the cancer, and this makes it almost impossible to manage lung cancer and it symptoms.
Additionally, because there is still no known cure for lung cancer, treatments especially on its advanced stage are done to lessen the severity of the lung cancer symptoms. Remission of the disease may no longer happen on the advanced stage.
Thus, it is imperative that minor lung cancer symptoms be monitored. It is still easier to manage lung cancer at this stage, other than in the advanced stage.
Finally, as mentioned earlier, smoking is the major cause of lung cancer, if you cease smoking, this effort will help you slow down the possibility of lung cancer. Even for those long time smokers, withdrawing from smoking will help lessen the possibility of acquiring the disease.
Keeping a healthy body and strong immune system will help avoid lung cancer for smokers or non-smokers alike.
Smokers may cease from smoking to help ensure they will not suffer lung cancer in the future. Then, they will not have to worry about lung cancer symptoms because halting smoking will also halt the possibility of acquiring this deadly disease.
Regular exercise will help ensure your immune system will be strong enough to fight lung cancer and thus no lung cancer symptoms will ever occur.
Living a healthy and active lifestyle, and avoiding smoking will ensure you will leave longer and better.
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