Posts Tagged ‘Lung Cancer’

What Are the Different Types of Respiratory Disorders?

The respiratory system plays a vital role in delivering oxygen to the body, fuel for all the body’s
functions. It also removes carbon dioxide waste, eliminates toxic waste, regulates temperature, and stabilizes blood acid-alkaline balance (pH).
Respiration is the set of events that results in the exchange of oxygen from the environment and carbon dioxide from the body’s cells. Respiratory system includes nose, throat, voice box, windpipe, and lungs.
There are many types of respiratory disease. They are often classified as obstructive or restrictive lung diseases and respiratory tract infections.

- Asthma: A condition in which the airways of the lungs become either narrowed or completely blocked, obstructing normal breathing. It may improve or worsen with age.
Symptoms : Sudden shortness of breath, wheezing, or coughing.
Causes : Inflammation of the lungs due to allergens, extreme climates, physical activity, stress, and many other factors.

- Bronchiolitis : It is an inflammation of the bronchi, the large airways inside the lungs. The inflammation causes these passages to increase their production of mucus that is thick and yellow or grey in color, which is then coughed up.

- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) : This is a chronic bronchitis/emphysema type disease. It is characterized by permanent, reduced lung capacity.
Long-term smoking often causes emphysema. It becomes difficult to breathe and get enough oxygen into the blood. In bronchitis, the membranes lining the larger bronchial tubes become inflamed and an excessive amount of mucus is produced.
Symptoms : Shape of the chest changes, chronic cough, tightness in chest, lung infections.
Oxygen therapy is beneficial and will allow patients who are suffering from COPD to be more active.

- Cystic fibrosis (CF) : It is the most common inherited disease affecting the lungs. It causes the body to produce a thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs, leading to infection, and blocks the pancreas, stopping digestive enzymes from reaching the intestines where they are required to digest food.

- Influenza : It is an acute, contagious, respiratory tract infection, which is caused by one of the influenza viruses.
Symptoms : fever, coughs and muscle aches, sore throat, runny nose, muscle and headaches, fatigue, cough, diarrhoea and dizziness.

- Pneumonia : Pneumonia is an infection of the lung tissue. This inflammation of the lungs usually occurs because of bacterial or viral infection.
Symptoms : Intense, sometimes painful cough, chest pain, fever and, due to the nature of pneumonia’s involvement with the lungs, difficulty in breathing.

- Common Cold : Inflammation in the upper respiratory tract, the common cold is the most common respiratory infection.

- Lung Cancer : It is caused by an abnormal growth of cells in the lungs. It starts in the lining of the bronchi and takes a long time to develop.
Symptoms : Includes a persistent cough that may bring up blood, chest pain, hoarseness, and shortness of breath.

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How can a positive attitude help you to live with lung cancer?

If somebody has been diagnosed cancer, it is a physical and an emotional blow for any individual. Treatment that deals with our emotions and relationships can help people with cancer feel more upbeat and have a better quality of life. Sadness, depression, guilt, fear, and anxiety are all normal parts of learning to cope with major life changes, and a cancer diagnosis is a major life change. Trying to ignore these feelings or not talking with others about them can make the person with cancer feel lonely. It can also make the emotional pain worse.
In many cases, lung cancer can be cured if it is detected early. Normal life can be lead after the initial treatment. The most critical part is to follow your doctor’s advice and check-ups. If the cancer is in advanced stage, you may live for years depending on how well the treatment works.

During treatment, you feel more tired than usual especially physical activities that include climbing stairs, gardening, shopping etc are more tiring. Your attitudes, emotions, and moods can change from day to day, and even from hour to hour. You may feel good one day and terrible the next. Know that this is normal and that, with time, most people are able to adjust to a cancer diagnosis and move forward with their lives. One should be aware of the side-effects of treatment like hair loss, nausea, vomiting, constipation, neuropathy and changes that can happen to your skin.

Studies related to cancer patients have been mixed, and some research suggests that having a positive attitude has an important role for boosting immunity. Your general well being and emotional strength often have a direct correlation to survival with lung cancer. Do not let anyone steal your hope. Each person responds differently to each treatment. Be positive in your approach, your family, well wishers and the medical team who are there with you in the fight.

Chemotherapy – a method to treat lung cancer.

Chemotherapy is the use of drugs given by mouth or injection to destroy cancer cells that may have spread beyond the tumor. There are many types of chemotherapy drugs, and they may be given in combination with each other, and also in combination with surgery and radiation. Chemotherapy may be given as pills, as an intravenous infusion, or as a combination of the two. Chemotherapy treatments usually are given in an outpatient setting. A combination of drugs is given in a series of treatments, called cycles, over a period of weeks to months, with breaks in between cycles.

Both NSCLC and SCLC may be treated with chemotherapy.

- Small-cell lung cancer: Chemotherapy is the mainstay of the treatment for SCLC. Radiation therapy is often used along with chemotherapy to treat lung tumors that have not spread beyond the chest or other organs. Surgery is not commonly used in SCLC due to its tendency to spread quickly.

- Non-small-cell lung cancer: Patients diagnosed as having NSCLC in its earliest stages are candidates for surgical resection with a realistic hope of curing the disease. More recently, chemotherapy is added after surgery to treat patients with any tumor spread to the lymph nodes or to treat large tumors that remain after surgery.

When Is Chemotherapy Used?

- As an adjunct (in addition) to surgery.
- To shrink a tumor before surgery.
- To cure cancer.
- To prolong life in those with advanced cancer.

Side effects of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapeutic drugs affect normal cells, too. It is important to know side effects of chemotherapy vary depending on the type of chemotherapy and how the patient responds.
- Nausea and vomiting.
- Hair loss.
- Fatigue.
- Infections.
- Bleeding.
- Mouth sores.
- Loss of appetite.
- Diarrhea.
- Weight loss.
- Anemia.