How to detect and prevent lung cancer early?

Data reports over the years have shown that among all cancers, lung cancer has always been the type with the highest incidence and mortality rate among Chinese people.

What’s even more frightening is that 80% of lung cancer patients are already in the middle or late stages when clinically diagnosed, missing out on the best treatment opportunities.

Why does lung cancer always come on so aggressively? Are there no signs at all in the early stages? Is there any way to prevent it?

1. Early symptoms of lung cancer are not obvious

Lung cancer, like most cancers, has no obvious early symptoms.

In the early stages, symptoms usually include cough, chest tightness, fever, loss of appetite, etc. These symptoms often occur in normal times and are too easy to be ignored as minor illnesses.

Furthermore, the lung itself is a special organ. The two lobes of the lung are located in the huge chest cavity. Lung tumors must grow to a certain size before they compress other organs and cause symptoms such as pain and coughing up blood.

At this time, people panic and go to the hospital for check-up, but the disease is often already in the middle or late stages of lung cancer.

2. Early diagnosis and early treatment are most important

The earlier lung cancer is detected and treated, the higher the survival rate. After standardized treatment, the 5-year survival rate of early stage I lung cancer can even reach 100%. The 10-year survival rate of stage I lung cancer patients is also over 80%, but in the late stage, the 5-year survival rate is only 16.1%.

The key to the 84% difference in survival rate lies in early screening, early detection and early intervention!

3. How to detect lung cancer early?

If you are in a high-risk group, it is recommended that you undergo a low-dose spiral CT scan once a year to screen for early lung cancer.

It is called low-dose spiral CT because its radiation dose is 26% or even lower than that of ordinary CT. This greatly reduces the side effects of radiation and has no impact on human health.

Moreover, low-dose spiral CT scans the cross-section of the lungs layer by layer, which is more intuitive and can detect very small lesions in the lungs (≤ 2 mm in diameter).

The earlier lung cancer is detected, the greater the treatment options available and the greater the chance of cure.

4. If you don’t want to get lung cancer, stay away from these 3 things

In addition to early screening, prevention of lung cancer also requires staying away from these risk factors:

1. Tobacco

Smoking is recognized worldwide as the most important factor in causing lung cancer. 90% of lung cancer is related to smoking. Secondhand smoke and thirdhand smoke also increase the risk of lung cancer.

The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the greater your risk of lung cancer.

2. Kitchen fumes

The fumes produced by cooking oil at high temperatures contain more than 200 harmful substances. Long-term exposure to the fumes will increase the risk of lung cancer by 3.79 times.

So remember to turn on the range hood when cooking, and “turn it on a little earlier and turn it off a little later.”

3. Decoration pollution

Radon, phenol, formaldehyde and other materials in decoration and decoration are carcinogens that will increase the indoor PM2.5 concentration and endanger human health. When decorating, make sure to use environmentally friendly materials and open windows more often for ventilation.

In general, although cancer is terrible, many tragedies can be avoided. Develop good living habits, 1/3 of cancer can be avoided through prevention, regular physical examinations, early screening, 1/3 of cancer can be effectively controlled through early detection. Prevention when there is no disease, early treatment when there is disease, this is the significance of physical examinations.