When should a doctor check for lung cancer?
Jun 16, 2010 in
Mesothelioma FAQs
My Dad was just diagnosted with lung cancer. It is stage 4 or 5. That’s very bad. He’d had cancers on his face removed, and many colonoscopies checking for pollups which they had to remove at least one. Shouldn’t they have checked elsewhere and found this before now?
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4 comments
Panda on June 16, 2010 at 1:07 pm
There are over 200 different types of cancer and just as many subtypes . . and there is no way to tell in the early stages if you have any of them. This is the reason cancer is so deadly . .because it is deceptive and by the time you have symptoms the cancer is already advanced. So, no, a doctor would not routinely screen for lung cancer unless he had reasons to suspect it was there. Cancer on the face is totally different than what is found in the lung . . and a colonoscopy checks only for nodules or tumor in the colon. The body is a huge place . . and looking for cancer is like searching for a needle in a haystack . . .you have to know where to look or you can miss it.
Also . . cancer can be aggressive and grow very rapidly. Thus it is possible that your fathers lung cancer was too tiny to see when he was last at his doctors . . . and the months in between the doctor visits the cancer started to grow. Cancer starts out microscopic and begins to grow . . sometimes it takes months, sometimes weeks . . and, unfortunately with aggressive cancer . . it might only be days. The definition of cancer means the ‘uncontrolled’ growth of cells.
I’m sorry about your Dad . .but cancer is deceptive . .it is no ones fault.
Ann M on June 16, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Depends…did you father ever ask to be screened for lung cancer?
Colonoscopies are normal routine check men over 50 MUST go to.
Cancer on his face was visible to the Dr.
meeta bhar on June 16, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Wasn`t he showing any symptoms, like cough, blood in the sputum? That`s suprising the doctors did not even consider the lungs before? You should question the doctors involved regarding this matter.
Spreedog on June 16, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Panda is absolutely correct. Studies have been done testing the theory that routine screening of people over 45 (especially smokers) for lung cancer might help us find lung cancers earlier when they could be more effectively treated. These have been large studies at the Mayo Clinic and other excellent medical centers. It has not been clearly demonstrated that finding a lung cancer earlier in an asymptomatic stage makes any significant difference in the long term outcome.
The reason is as Panda says – by the time a lung cancer is large enough to be seen on screening chest x-rays, it is already advanced in most cases. A billion cancer cells is about the size of a marble on a chest x-ray – and that’s about as early as they might be detected. Lung cancers tend to spread microscopically through the blood stream very early – often before they are large enough to show up on tests.
Lung cancer is not the same as colon cancer or breast cancer where early detection and screening make a great deal of difference. Cancers are MANY different diseases as Panda says.