How does small cell lung cancer develop

Lung cancer is a common malignant tumor disease that is on the rise year by year. It has always been an important disease that endangers people's health. Small cell lung cancer is a type of lung cancer, so its manifestations and treatments are also different. So how does small cell lung cancer occur? Let's learn about it together.

Small cell lung cancer is one of the basic types of lung cancer and is an undifferentiated cancer. Its pathological types include oat cell type, intermediate cell type and compound oat cell type. One-third of lung cancer patients belong to this type. Small cell lung cancer is a highly malignant tumor with poor biological behavior and a poor prognosis. Compared with other types of lung cancer with the same spread range, the symptom period before diagnosis of small cell lung cancer is shorter, and the survival period after diagnosis is also shorter. If not treated, the median survival time of patients with small cell lung cancer from diagnosis is less than three months, and the two-year survival rate is less than 1%. The age of onset is relatively young, more common in men, and most patients have a history of smoking.

Generally originating from larger bronchi, most are central lung cancers. Small cell carcinomas are poorly differentiated, grow fast, and metastasize to lymph nodes and invade blood vessels earlier and metastasize extensively to distant organs and tissues in the body through the bloodstream. Therefore, among all types of lung cancers, small cell carcinomas have the worst prognosis. Small cell carcinomas are highly sensitive to radiotherapy and/or anticancer drug treatment. Surgery is generally not recommended for treatment, and systemic chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the main treatments. This type of lung cancer has a higher degree of malignancy and a poorer prognosis. Fever and cough are common symptoms of lung cancer in patients. Headaches should alert you to brain metastases, and a cranial CT scan is strongly recommended.

Some small cell lung carcinomas are misdiagnosed as atypical carcinoids. Small cell lung carcinoma, carcinoid and atypical carcinoid are all pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors, and are also common tumors of lung tissue. In differential diagnosis, it should be noted that highly malignant tumors, while carcinoid and atypical carcinoid are low-grade and moderately malignant. The former tumor progresses rapidly, and spreads, infiltrates and metastasizes quickly; the latter is clinically progressive and the disease progresses slowly. Carcinoid and atypical carcinoids present a typical organ-like nested structure, with tumor cells arranged in rosettes, ribbons, cords, and glandular ducts, and the tumor cells are relatively uniform. Highly malignant tumor cells are densely packed and deeply stained. Highly malignant tumors have abnormally active nuclear divisions, with an average nuclear division of more than 801lOHPF, and a maximum of 200 per 10HPF; carcinoid nuclear divisions are less than 2 per 10HPF, and atypical carcinoid nuclear divisions are 2-10 per 10HPF. Highly malignant tumors often have extensive, large-scale necrosis; carcinoids generally have no necrosis, and atypical carcinoids show punctate necrosis. In neuroendocrine immunohistochemistry testing, the positive rate of carcinoids and atypical carcinoids is much higher than that of highly malignant tumors.

Small cell lung cancer has a neuroendocrine organ-like nested structure, NHL tumor cells are more diffuse and uniform, without specific structures, and small cell lung cancer tumor cells are more densely arranged and more diverse in morphology; NHL tumor cells are more uniform in morphology, small cell lung cancer presents large-scale extensive necrosis, vascular walls are basophilic, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the lung does not have such changes; d. Clinically, small cell lung cancer develops rapidly and soon metastasizes to distant sites, while non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the lung develops more slowly and often has no distant metastasis. Highly malignant tumors are positive for keratin and neuroendocrine antibodies; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the lung. Small cell squamous cell carcinoma is less differentiated, with smaller cancer cells and granular nuclear chromatin. The cell morphology is similar to that of small cell lung cancer.

Small cell squamous cell carcinoma cells show more cytoplasm and more obvious nucleoli. Squamous cell carcinoma stratification and intracellular keratinization can always be found in cancerous tissues, while small cell lung carcinoma lacks the above characteristics. It has organ-like nested structures, rosettes, ribbon-like, cord-like urine-like structures, large pieces of necrosis and basophilic vascular walls of neuroendocrine tumors. Small cell squamous cell carcinoma is generally strongly positive for epithelial markers, reaching 97-99%, while small cell lung carcinoma is positive for low molecular weight CK and only 50% positive for EMA. Neuroendocrine marker antibody detection shows that LC has a higher positive rate and stronger expression than small cell squamous cell carcinoma. The clinical development of small cell lung carcinoma is faster than that of small cell squamous cell carcinoma, and distant metastasis is also earlier. Small cell lung carcinoma is sensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while the first choice for small cell squamous cell carcinoma is surgical resection.