How to check lung cancer? Several effective methods to confirm lung cancer

In recent years, due to poor air quality and other reasons, more and more people have been troubled by the problem of lung cancer. So how can you determine whether you have lung cancer? The following will introduce the methods of lung cancer examination for your understanding.

What are the ways to check for lung cancer?

1. Chest X-ray and radiography can reveal various circular shadows, pneumonia, atelectasis, pleural effusion, etc. Chest X-ray, CT and MRI examinations can help us understand the relationship between the size of the tumor and the lung lobe, segment and bronchi. Bronchial iodized oil contrast can be performed if necessary.

2. Bronchoscopy can directly observe the lesions, and can also take biopsy samples for pathological examination and bronchial secretion smears to check for cancer cells.

3. Repeated examination of sputum for cancer cells may yield positive results, which are of diagnostic value.

4. If the lung puncture is accurately positioned, a smear examination of the puncture material can generally obtain a positive result, which is of diagnostic value.

5. Superficial lymph node puncture or biopsy: When lung cancer has not yet been confirmed or is accompanied by widening of the upper mediastinum, puncture and aspiration of cells or biopsy of palpable lymph nodes on the neck and clavicle, suspicious subcutaneous masses, and suspected cancerous lymph nodes in other parts can be performed to obtain a pathological histological diagnosis.

What are the common symptoms of lung cancer?

Hoarseness

It is the most common symptom in patients with advanced lung cancer. The recurrent laryngeal nerve that controls the left side of the voice function goes down from the neck to the chest, bypasses the large blood vessels of the heart and goes back up to the larynx, thus controlling the left side of the voice organ. Therefore, if the tumor invades the left side of the mediastinum and compresses the recurrent laryngeal nerve, hoarseness will occur, but there will be no sore throat or other symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection.

Facial and neck edema

On the right side of the mediastinum is the superior vena cava, which returns venous blood from the upper limbs and head and neck to the heart. If the tumor invades the right side of the mediastinum and compresses the superior vena cava, it will initially cause the jugular vein to swell due to poor blood return, and eventually lead to edema of the face and neck, which needs to be diagnosed and treated in a timely manner.