Lung Cancer Essay -- essays research papers fc

There are two different types of lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. It is all depending on the size of what the cells look like under a microscope. Both of these types of lung cancer can grow differently which leads to them both being treated differently. Non-small cell lung cancer is the more common of the two and it usually grows fairly slow. There are three main types of non-small cell lung cancer and they are squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. Small cell cancer is the least common and it grows fairly rapid and it can easily spread to other organs in the body (Cavendish, p.946). Usually cells grow and divide at a specific pace that keeps the body working healthy but sometimes the cells start to divide at an uncontrollably pace. When the cells grow too much they make a tumor. The cells in this tumor are cancer cells and when the cancer cells are in the lungs, they eat away at the lungs, which leads to killing someone. Some people that might get cancer are people who smoke cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, and people who get close to radon, asbestos, and pollution. In most people that cancer, the cancer cells are not found until it is in the later stages. Only 15% of the people that get cancer get it found in the early stages. When someone is found that they have cancer, they have at the most, five years to live. It matters if the cancer cells have gotten to the local lymph nodes or elsewhere. Most people figure out they have cancer by pure accident. They will go in to get an x-ray or CAT scan for something else and figure out they have cancer (http://my.webmd.com). There are many different symptoms for lung cancer. Most of them do something with breathing or something to do with their mouth. Some of the symptoms are; a cough that doesn’t go away, chest pain that is sometimes aggravated by deep breathing, hoarse sounding voice, weight loss or loss of appetite, bloody spit, shortness of breathe, fever with no known reason, recurring infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia, and wheezing (http://my.webmd.com). There is a lot of ways for Lung Cancer to be diagnosed. A CT (Computed Tomography) scan will tell the exact size, shape, and position of the tumor. A MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) will help tell where the cancer is going to spread. A PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan traces a... ...dy from the outside, and it is focused on the cancer. The other kind is brachytherapy, which a small pellet of radioactive material is placed directly into the cancer or an airway near it. I think that lung cancer is very severe. I thought that this report would be very good for me to do because a lot of people are going to know someone with lung cancer and if someone close to me gets lung cancer, then I will know what they are going threw. I may even get lung cancer someday and if I do, then I will know what my possibilities of living and what to do to help myself. I learned a lot while doing this report and I think that lung cancer and all other kind of cancers are a big deal and everything should learn all they can about them. Bibliography Encyclopedia of Family Health, volume 8, Marshall Cavendish, 1998, pp. 974 – 978 Johnston, Lorraine, Lung Cancer: Making Sense of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Options, O'Reilly & Associates, 2001 National Cancer Institute, What You Need to Know About Lung Cancer, 2000, http://my.webmd.com, May 16, 2001. The World Book Encyclopedia, volume 3, Scott Fetzer, 1998, pp. 167 – 174 Types of Treatment, 2000, http://www.cancer.org, May 16,2001