Lung Cancer Assignment 2022

LUNG CANCER
LUNG CANCER

L1
LUNG CANCER
Prominent aspects of the disease
Cancers have become one of the major causes of death in the whole world. Among several
types of cancers, Lung cancer has become one of the deadliest of them. In this disease certain
lung’s cell multiply uncontrollably and becomes abnormal to develop as a tumor (National
Lung Screening Trial Research Team, 2011). This cancer might show symptoms or signs in
the starting phase and may start with a pain in the pain in the chest, frequent coughing,
problems related to breathing, trouble in speaking or swallowing, blood in mucus, loss of
weight, loss of appetite, selling in the face or neck or fatigue. This Cancer is more in the case
of adults in the age of 60’s or 70’s. Small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer are
the two forms of lung cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer accounts for the major part of the
lung cancer i.e. 85% of it (NIH, 2019).
Current data and statistics
This disease was identified in 1.8 million people leading to death of 1.6 million people in the
year 2012. It is highly usual cancer that causes death among men while second most usual in
the case of women after breast cancer. After a decade of efforts the downfall in the death
numbers was seen in years 2016. The rate is approx. 30% higher (Lung.org, 2019). The lung
cancer survival rate is lower than many other leading sites for cancer i.e. only 18.6%.

L2
LUNG CANCER
Health disparities associated with disease
Most of the people who developed this disease had the smoking habits. Black men and
women are more prone to this disease than any other ethnic groups. Men are more vulnerable
to this disease when compared with others. Smoking, genes, social factors and environment
create these disparities (Rizvi, Hellmann, Snyder, Kvistborg, Makarov, Havel., ... & Miller,
2015).
Prevention strategies
There are different prevention strategies that can be used by the people as their prevention
strategies. Prevention strategies include:
Quit smoking and get lungs screened on time.
Checking your home for Radon can prevent an individual from lung cancers if they are non-
smokers. People need to check family history and HIV infection as a part of the strategy
(ODPHP, 2019). Always use health masks while working at hazardous place that may give
exposure to harmful gases such as Chromium, Asbestos, Arsenic, Cadmium, Nickel etc. Air
pollution is also the cause for lung cancer.
Contemporary research related to disease
There are large numbers of researches going on against the lung cancer. A huge amount of
investments is done in this regards. There are many diagnostic and treatment options that are
under trail. This includes personalised drug therapy where they are finding whether any
specific drug could be effective for that tumor or not. This is done by taking samples.
Another effective therapy in this regards is the targeted therapy where researchers are looking
at gene and changes in protein that could be new targets for the consumers (National Cancer
Institute, 2019). It involves changes named RET translocation, NTRK translocation, HER-2
mutation and met exon 14 skipping mutation. Another research is going in the field of
immunotherapy where multiple approvals of multiple types of immunology are leading to
more research on utilising these types of drugs to assist the immune system control NSCLC
growth.
Apart from this, there are development of better techniques for radiation therapy and surgery
such as video assisted thoracoscopic surgery where surgery is done with the help of smaller
openings in the chest. Improved screening techniques such as tests called circulating tumor