Lung Cancer: Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatments
Lung cancer is divided into small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) according to histologic type. NSCLC is divided into squamous cell cancers, adenocarcinomas and large cell carcinomas. SCLC is known to be the main cause of smoking, and most of them occur at ages 60-70 with long smoking history. Symptoms are similar to common lung cancer symptoms, such as cough, sputum, dyspnea, and hemoptysis, and paraneoplastic syndromes due to hormone-like substances secreted by cancer cells, which are characteristic of neuroendocrine origin, appear. A typical example is hyponatremia caused by SIADH due to excessive secretion of ADH, which may cause symptoms such as loss of consciousness, neuromuscular junction such as Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and electrolyte abnormalities such as Cushing syndrome, hypokalemia, hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis caused by ectopic ACTH secretion Symptoms may appear. SCLC is more prolonged than NSCLC, and it can grow rapidly over several cen...