What are the most typical symptoms of lung cancer

About 5% to 10% of patients with early lung cancer have no symptoms and are only discovered during X-ray examinations. More than 90% of patients have symptoms, but they are not early-stage specific symptoms. Generally, there are four categories.

(1) Pulmonary symptoms

① Cough: It is the most common symptom, and about 2/3 of patients have this symptom. It can be a mild dry cough or a severe cough, with varying amounts of sputum. However, in patients with chronic long-term coughs, once the nature of the cough changes, or the frequency of coughing changes or night coughing occurs, be alert to lung cancer. Continuous and uncontrollable coughing is one of the most painful symptoms of lung cancer.

② Hemoptysis: Half of lung cancer patients have this symptom. If a male smoker over 40 years old has blood in his sputum, blood streaks or small blood clots, the possibility of lung cancer is very high. This is also one of the early symptoms of lung cancer.

③Chest pain : 30% to 40% of patients experience pulmonary chest pain, which is generally intermittent and mild chest pain. It manifests as dull pain or drilling pain, which can last from several minutes to several hours. If the tumor invades the pleura, the pain will be more severe, continuous and fixed. If chest pain recurs in early lung cancer, the prognosis is poor if the pain recurs later.

④ Fever: Most of the fever of lung cancer is caused by inflammation due to bronchial obstruction and poor drainage caused by cancer. Early antibiotic treatment can restore body temperature to normal, but it is easy to relapse. In patients with larger tumors, necrosis occurs in the inflammatory center, and the absorption of toxins often causes a higher body temperature. Sometimes the fever is remitted every day for several months, and repeated anti-inflammatory treatment is ineffective. Once the tumor is removed, the body temperature immediately returns to normal. Lung cancer patients have no obvious inflammation in their bodies, but they have obvious fever, which is often caused by the tumor itself, the so-called "cancer fever", and the body temperature is often below 38?C. Male smokers over 45 years old who have long-term lung inflammation and fever and poor treatment results should be especially alert to the possibility of lung cancer.

⑤ Chest tightness and shortness of breath : In addition to tumors blocking the bronchus and causing atelectasis and lung inflammation, which can also cause chest tightness and shortness of breath, it is generally more obvious in the late stages of lung cancer, especially when there is a large amount of pleural effusion.

(2) Extrapulmonary and intrathoracic manifestations : A series of chest manifestations may occur due to tumor invasion of the pleura, chest wall, mediastinal organs, and intrathoracic nerves. Tumor invasion of the pleura may cause respiratory pain and pleural effusion (i.e., pleural effusion). Bloody pleural effusion indicates a poor prognosis. If malignant tumor cells are found in the pleural effusion, the opportunity for surgery will be lost. Tumor involvement in the mediastinum is mostly caused by mediastinal lymph node metastasis, and a few are direct invasions. 5% of patients suffer from edema of the upper limbs and above the shoulders, venous distension, headache, and difficulty breathing due to tumor compression of the superior vena cava, indicating that the disease is already in the late stage. Tumor compression of the esophagus may cause difficulty in swallowing, and invasion of the recurrent laryngeal nerve may cause hoarseness.

(3) Extrathoracic metastasis : Lung cancer often metastasizes along lymphatic vessels and blood vessels, with cervical lymph nodes, liver, adrenal glands, bones, kidneys, and brain being the most common sites. Nearly 15% of patients present with metastatic lesions as the first manifestation, and hematogenous metastasis is the most common in adenocarcinoma and small cell lung cancer.

(4) Extrathoracic non-metastatic manifestations: Extrathoracic non-metastatic manifestations occur in only 2% of patients, but the symptoms are complex, involving multiple systems, and the etiology is unclear. Common manifestations include skeletal manifestations, such as clubbing of fingers (toes) and osteoarthritis; neuromuscular manifestations, such as myopathy, peripheral neuropathy, cerebellar degeneration; endocrine manifestations, such as Cushing's syndrome, abnormal hormone secretion, carcinoid syndrome, hypercalcemia; vascular manifestations, such as phlebitis, endocarditis; blood manifestations, such as anemia, purpura, leukemoid reaction; skin manifestations, such as acanthosis nigricans and scleroderma.

(5) Systemic manifestations : The systemic manifestations of lung cancer are the same as those of other malignant tumors, including anorexia, weight loss, fatigue, and finally cachexia.

The above introduces the common knowledge of lung cancer symptoms. Everyone should pay attention to their health in life. If the above symptoms appear, go to the hospital for examination in time to avoid developing into the late stage and causing serious consequences.

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