Sign and Symptoms of Lung Cancer

Signs and symptoms of lung cancer typically occur only when the disease is advanced, It will take many years to develop which often leads to diagnosis at an advanced stage of this disease. Sometimes lung cancer does not cause any symptoms and is only found by a routine x-ray, It is important to talk to a doctor when symptoms are present. The most common symptoms of lung cancer are may include:

Smoker's cough that persists or becomes intense.

Cough is an important symptom of lung cancer, but it is difficult to distinguish cough associated with lung cancer from cough associated smoking or cough associated with chronic lung conditions like COPD that has resulted from smoking.

Breathing problems (shortness of breath or wheezing)

Any kind of "shortness of breath" is a potentially life-threatening emergency, It may lead to the dangerous causes such as heart attack, pneumonia, or pulmonary embolism. But for the people who has heavy smoker history, a change in pattern of respiratory difficulty should cause concern for the development of lung cancer.

Coughing up blood, even a small amount

The symptom of coughing up blood needs to be distinguished from the more general symptom of blood in sputum, where blood may come from other causes than coughing such as nasal bleeding, gastrointestinal bleeding, etc. The doctors are also consider about lung cancer development.

Frequent lung infections (pneumonia or bronchitis)

Some of lung cancer patients are developed of pneumonia or bronchitis.

Persistent chest, shoulder, or back pain

Lung cancer can infiltrate into the chest wall and may cause pain in the chest. Development of chest pain in a high-risk person should alert the physician to the possibility of lung cancer with chest wall invasion, or plural involvement.

Change in the voice (hoarseness of voice)

These is also one of lung cancer's symptom, Its occur because of the pressure effect on the one of nerves that comes from the chest to the vocal cord (called recurrent laryngeal nerve).

Other sign and symptoms of Lung Cancer

Those people who develop of persistent cough more than 2 weeks, event they are non-smokers category may need to be consider about symptom of lung cancer. Other symptoms that can be related to late-stage lung cancer are trouble swallowing, neck and facial swelling, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue and tiredness.