What are the mid-stage symptoms of lung cancer

Although lung cancer is a killer of human health, the reality is that many lung cancer patients are not diagnosed until the middle or late stage, which makes treatment quite difficult. The early symptoms of lung cancer may not be obvious, so they are ignored by many patients. Let's take a look at the symptoms of middle and late stage lung cancer.

Symptoms of advanced lung cancer:

1. Chest pain Chest pain is caused by tumor cells invading some organs in the chest cavity. The chest cavity is a very complex space. Three-quarters of the lung surface is surrounded by the chest wall, which is composed of a thin layer of lining (parietal pleura), fat, muscle, ribs and skin in different proportions. Tumor invasion of any of the above parts will cause pain. Therefore, most lung cancer patients who have regionally spread in the chest have symptoms of chest pain.

2. Hoarseness. Patients with advanced lung cancer usually experience hoarseness. This is because the recurrent laryngeal nerve that controls the left side of the vocal function goes down from the neck to the chest, bypasses the large blood vessels of the heart and goes back up to the larynx, thus controlling the left side of the vocal organ. Therefore, if the tumor invades the left side of the mediastinum and compresses the recurrent laryngeal nerve, hoarseness will occur, but there will be no sore throat or other symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection.

3. Pleural effusion and shortness of breath. Shortness of breath is caused by the fact that the tumor in the lungs of patients with advanced lung cancer has invaded most of the lung tissue. The normal tissue fluid produced by the lungs and myocardium is returned by the lymph nodes in the middle of the chest. If these lymph nodes are blocked by the tumor, the tissue fluid will accumulate in the pericardium to form pericardial effusion or accumulate in the chest cavity to form pleural effusion. Both of the above situations can cause shortness of breath.

The above are the symptoms of mid-to-late stage lung cancer. It can be seen that these symptoms are quite obvious. However, many patients do not have the correct health awareness, or feel abnormalities in their bodies but do not think that this is a serious situation, which leads to the late diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. It can be seen how important good health awareness is.