Lung Cancer Symptoms
Despite the seriousness of the disease, many victims do not show any lung cancer symptoms until the cancer has grown or spread to other parts of the body. The most apparent lung cancer symptoms do not usually appear until the illness reaches the more advanced stages, and even then there are few lung cancer symptoms that are specific to lung cancer only.
An unexplained cough that just won't go away is the most common sign of lung cancer. In people who have a persistent cough, or smoker's cough, lung cancer may show up as a change in the cough. Lung cancer symptoms get worse and become easier to identify as the disease worsens, but the earliest stages are often undetectable.
Almost one-fourth of lung cancers are discovered by accident because there are no obvious symptoms. In these cases, lung cancer appears as a small mass and is usually discovered during a routine chest x-ray or CT scan.
The majority of lung cancer symptoms begin when the cancerous mass, or tumor, gets big enough to begin interfering with normal lung function. At this point, the lung cancer has grown within the lungs, and the lung cancer symptoms normally reported include:
• chest pain
• coughing up mucus tinged with blood
• coughing up blood
• shortness of breath
• wheezing.
When the lung cancer spreads to parts of the body further outside the lungs, other lung cancer symptoms begin to appear, including:
• shooting pain in the shoulder that spreads down the arm, called Pancoast's Syndrome
• becoming hoarse due to paralysis in the vocal chords
• difficulty swallowing if the cancer should spread to the esophagus.
If the tumor is large enough to obstruct the air passage into the lung, it may cause part of the lung to collapse or produce recurring bouts of pneumonia, bronchitis or other respiratory infections.
There are a few lung cancer symptoms that seem to be completely unrelated to the lungs, yet they still occur. These include:
• unexplained fever
• weight loss
• unusual changes in fingertip shape
• swollen glands, or lymph nodes, in the lower neck and upper chest.
Since many of these lung cancer symptoms are fairly innocuous on their own, they are often not identified as being associated with lung cancer. That is why lung cancer is not usually diagnosed until it has reached a more advanced stage.
Once the lung cancer has reached stage 4 and spread into parts of the body that are located further from the lungs, there are more signs but they can also seem unrelated. If the cancer moves into the bones, patients may experience terrible pain in the areas of the bone where the cancer has taken hold. When lung cancer reaches the brain, the cancer often causes blurred vision, headaches, seizure and stroke-like symptoms.