How to check lung cancer? Introduction to 3 methods to accurately check lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease with high morbidity and mortality, and needs to be actively treated. Many cancers have no obvious signs or special physical manifestations at the beginning, so the disease should be diagnosed through examination. When adverse symptoms are obvious, cancer cells have metastasized, indicating that the disease has worsened, a lung function test should be performed immediately.

Once severe lung cancer occurs, the body will show many symptoms under the influence of the disease. If the treatment is not timely, the cancer cells may metastasize and spread, which will increase the difficulty of treatment and endanger the patient's life and health. Therefore, early diagnosis of the disease is of great significance, which is conducive to determining the symptomatic treatment plan. Let's take a closer look at what are the methods for lung cancer examination?

First, chest CT is the most important imaging method in lung cancer examination, also known as X-ray tomography. Compared with the traditional old X-ray chest film, it changes the picture from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. Through the lung enhanced CT scan, the blood supply in the lesion can be clearly judged, which greatly improves the detection rate of lung cancer. Although chest X-ray (chest X-ray fluoroscopy) can detect lung cancer, its detection rate for carcinoma in situ and early lung cancer is very low and easy to miss. It is generally not recommended as the first choice for lung cancer screening. Low-dose spiral CT is used for lung cancer screening. The typical CT manifestation of lung cancer is a single irregular soft tissue tumor. The tumor can be lobed, the edge can have burrs, and there can be punctate calcification or necrosis.

Second, laboratory tests for lung cancer mainly detect lung cancer tumor markers (tumor markers refer to proteins expressed or highly expressed in tumor cells and not expressed or low expressed in normal cells), including carcinoembryonic antigen, neuron-specific enolase and squamous cell carcinoma antigen, which are helpful as an auxiliary diagnosis.

Third, in clinical practice, commonly used lung cancer examination methods include X-rays to determine larger lesions, chest CT to determine smaller lesions, whole-body pET-CT and pathological examination. Whole-body pET-CT is suitable for patients with metastatic lesions or those without pathological examination. Generally, the benign or malignant degree of lung cancer can be analyzed based on its SUV value. At the same time, pathological examination is very important for the diagnosis of tumors. Under the guidance of CT, lesion tissue is obtained through bronchoscopy or tumor puncture to determine the pathological nature and type of the tumor, and then an appropriate treatment plan is selected.

According to the above introduction, lung cancer can be checked through lung CT or X-ray irradiation or lung imaging. If there is a lung shadow, it needs to be re-diagnosed, perhaps through MRI examination. Therefore, once lung cancer is diagnosed, it needs to be controlled with drugs in time. Of course, if drug treatment is not ideal, surgical treatment can also be considered to promote the control of lung cancer.