Written By: Debjani Arora | Published : August 20, 2018 3:56 PM IST
Like most cancers lung cancer grow and destroy your organs silently. The damage comes to the fore when the situation has gone beyond the control. Not many people will reach out to a doctor to screen their lungs as a preventive measure and check if there are any unusual growths benign or malignant in the lungs. Lung cancer is not asymptomatic and usually represents the symptoms early which we fail to pick on. The symptoms are usually so trivial that one can mistake it for a seasonal cough or a respiratory infection whopping cough, chest pain, blood in cough (this could be a red flag), etc. By the time one reaches to the doctor the condition worsens steadily. However, people with an increased risk of lung cancer may be considered for an annual lung cancer screening using low-dose CT scans. It is generally offered to people over 55 years of age who smoked heavily for many years and is otherwise healthy.
Here are ways in which a screening for lung cancer is done:
Chest x-rays: An X-ray of your lungs will be taken to check any abnormal mass or nodule, which will be like a first of the many tests to ascertain lung cancer. If a nodule appears in x-ray then a CT scan is done to reveal small lesions in your lungs that might not be detected on an X-ray.
Sputum cytology: If one of your symptoms is a whooping cough and you are producing sputum, looking at the sputum under the microscope can sometimes reveal the presence of lung cancer cells.
Biopsy: A sample of abnormal cells may be removed in a procedure called a biopsy to check for cancerous cells. There are various ways in which your doctor can check for cancerous cells in lungs, some of the well known ways are:
A careful analysis of the cancer cells help to decide which stage your cancer is in and what is the status. The stage of the cancer helps the doctor to decide what treatment is most appropriate.
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