Small cell lung cancer

Chest | Oncology | Small cell lung cancer (Disease)


Description

Lung cancer occurs due to a chaotic, uncontrolled replication of lung parenchymal cells. Cancer cells change their pit more features so become able to multiply quickly, which allows them to spread in the body, causing metastases in various organs.

Lung cancer can occur in any part of the lung, as there are areas particularly prone to the development. Because it is discovered very late, often in the terminal stages of lung cancer mortality is one of the most high, being exceeded only by breast cancer and the prostate.

Symptoms often nonspecific or misleading (cough, impaired general condition), is the patient who creates the feeling that the illness is not so bad and is not present from the beginning to the doctor. As the presentation is delayed, the more the risk that the cancer has evolve is increased, and treatment options come to be very limited and very inefficient. Symptoms appear suddenly and worsen quickly. In some cases, due to obstruction due to tumor or because tumor itself, patients can present with lung infections or fever. Metastasis occurs very rapidly during the evolution of small cell carcinoma, mediastinal lymph nodes were affected first.

Lung cancer histopathology exists in several forms, most important, representing over 95% of cases are represented by small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell cancer. The proportion of small cell cancer is about 20-25% of small cell . The tumor is often centrally located and can cause bronchial irritation, the main airway obstruction.

Causes and Risk factors

The predominant cause of both small-cell lung cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer is tobacco smoking. All types of lung cancers occur with increased frequency in people who mine uranium, radon and asbestos. In all cases the prevalence is increased further in persons who smoke.

Small cell cancer is one of the leading cancers that cause superior vene syndrome, occurring more frequently in these cancers than non-small. Neurological syndromes associated with Eaton-Lambert syndrome are, in acute sensory neuropathy, in acute cerebellar degeneration and limbic encephalopathy.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Physical and history tests are done. In most of the cases a biopsy is performed as well as one or more of the following tests: bone scan, chest X-ray, complete blood count (CBC), CT scan, liver function tests, MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) scan, sputum test.

Because SCLC spreads quickly throughout the body, treatment must include cancer-killing drugs (chemotherapy) taken by mouth or injected into the body. Usually, the chemotherapy drug etoposide (or sometimes irinotecan) is combined with either cisplatin or carboplatin.

Combination chemotherapy and radiation treatment is given to people with SCLC that has spread throughout the body. However, the treatment only helps relieve symptoms. It does...