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Keep your lungs healthy by recognizing and preventing lung cancer

One of the most frequent types of cancer encountered nowadays is the lung cancer. Statistics say that every year approximately 40,000 people in the UK die from lung cancer so you can imagine how dangerous this affection is. In the USA lung cancer affects 99,000 men and 78,000 women every year and from all of them 86% die during the first years since they were diagnosed with cancer.

Researchers say that the main cause of lung cancer is tobacco smoke. Smoking seems to increase the risk of developing lung cancer ten times more than in non smokers. It is true that non smokers can develop lung cancer too, but this is happening due to other risk factors that can affect them. As the tobacco industry and marketing have been developing more and more during the last 50 years it is not surprisingly that nowadays a lot of lung cancer cases are being detected.

Lung cancer has its signs and symptoms. A person that suffers of pulmonary cancer can accuse:

1. * a chronic cough
2. * breathlessness that is worsening in time
3. * intense weigh loss in a short period of time
4. * fatigue
5. * chest pain (if the lung cancer has spread to the bones the pain can occur in other places too)

All these symptoms can be given by a tumor that has first developed in the lung or by the metastasis that are situated in the lungs but are given from a cancer that is situated in other organs.

One of the most severe symptoms that can occur in lung cancer is blood coughing. This symptom often occurs in a lung cancer that is in its first stages and still can be cured.

If you observe any of these previous signs in you, you should go to a doctor and ask his opinion on them. Having one or more of these symptoms does not mean that you have lung cancer as they can occur in other respiratory affections too but still you should not wait for them to pass or treat them by the advices of your friends or neighbors. Go to a doctor, have a few tests done and then see what else can be done for you to get well.

Unfortunately, most of the lung cancers are diagnosed only in their latest stages as the patients do not go to the doctor for a check up as soon as they observe their first symptoms. If you have in your family a close relative that has had pulmonary cancer go periodically to your doctor for checkups, to make sure that if you develop this affection too, you will be diagnosed in time to save your life.

Statistics say that 10% of the patients that have been treated of lung cancer survive more that five years after the treatment, without having lung cancer recurrences.

All these data show that it is always best to prevent a disease than treat it. Here are a few things that can be done in order to prevent lung cancer:

1. Give up smoking!

Many studies have concluded that 10 years after quitting smoking your lungs will be as good as new and the risk of developing lung cancer will decrease year by year. Try to think of all the benefits you gain by giving up smoking: you protect your health, you can save a lot of money by not buying cigarettes any more, you will have a fresh breath, you will not feel breathlessness any more when running or playing with your children, and you will feel better for sure. There are a lot of programs that can help you give up smoking if you think you can not do it on your own. In every big hospital there is a program implemented to help you quit smoking, so go to your current doctor and ask for his help.

2. Test your home for radon.

Broken down uranium will give the radon, a radioactive gas that has no taste, no smell, it is invisible but can hurt you and your family a lot. Homes that are built over natural deposits of uranium can get you in touch with increased levels of radon which in time might give you lung cancer.

3. Be careful where you work.

Some workplaces expose people to toxic substances that can cause lung cancer. Fumes, dust, chemicals, gasoline, diesel exhaust, nickel chromates, arsenic, coal products, mustard gas and beryllium are only a few substances known as carcinogens.

4. Protect your non-smoker statute.

Cancer can affect non smokers too if they sit near those people who smoke. Second hand smoking also brings inside your lungs carcinogen substances that can lead to lung cancer. You have the right to breathe a clean air no matter what smokers say. In the last few years a lot of countries have interdicted smoking inside workplaces, restaurants, public buildings, all this for protecting the non-smokers and the smokers from developing lung cancer.

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