Causes of Lung Cancer | Asbestos Cancer

Causes of Lung Cancer - Smoking is a major cause of about 90% of cases of lung cancer in men and about 70% in women. The more cigarettes smoked, the greater the risk for lung cancer.

Only a small proportion of lung cancer (about 10% -15% in men and 5% in women) caused by or inhaled substances encountered at work. Working with asbestos, radiation, arsenic, chromate, nickel, chloromethyl ethers, mustard gas and coke oven emissions can cause lung cancer, although usually only occurs in workers who also smoked.

The role of air pollution as a cause of lung cancer is still unclear.
Some cases occur because of exposure by radon gas in the household.

Sometimes, lung cancer (particularly adenocarcinoma and alveolar cell carcinoma) occurred in people who already have lung scarring due to other lung diseases, such as tuberculosis and fibrosis.

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What is Lung Cancer | Types of Lung Cancer

What is Lung Cancer - Most lung cancers originate from cells in the lungs, but lung cancer can also originate from cancer in other body parts that spread to the lungs.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in both men and women.
Lung cancer is also the leading cause of cancer deaths.

Types of Lung Cancer

More than 90% of lung cancers originated from the bronchi (large airways into the lungs), cancer is called carcinoma bronkogenik, which consists of:
1. Squamous cell carcinoma
2. Small cell carcinoma or squamous cell wheat
3. Large cell carcinoma
4. Adenocarcinoma.

Alveolar cell carcinoma derived from air pockets (alveoli) in the lungs. This cancer can be a single growth, but often strike more than one area in the lungs.

Lung tumors are less common are:
1. Adenoma (can be malignant or benign)
2. Kondromatous hamartoma (benign)
3. Sarcoma (malignant)

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymph system, which can be derived from the lung or is spread from another organ. Many cancers that originate from elsewhere to spread to the lungs. This cancer usually comes from the breast, colon, prostate, kidney, thyroid, stomach, cervix, rectum, testicles, bones and skin.

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New Drug for Lung Cancer

Treatment for Lung Cancer - Two new treatments have been developed to prolong the lives of several patients suffering from advanced lung cancer. The discovery of the health sector was announced on Saturday (5/6). American Oncologist (ASCO)said that the first treatment involves an experimental drug called crizotinib can shrink tumors in the majority of lung cancer patients with certain gene variants.

Crizotinib, made by Pfizer Inc., proved to be effective in prolonging survival for most patients who took part in a single stage treatment. The patients who had successfully treat "non-small lung cancer cell" with a specific mutation ALK gene, which makes cancer gene fused with another gene. The patients treated in the study average for six months, and more than 90 percent of patients saw their tumors shrink in size. Then, 72 percent of the patients freedom of action, six months after treatment.

Second treatment were: two regimens of chemotherapy, which is useful for elderly patients. The patients represent the majority of people worldwide are affected by lung cancer. Maintenance phase of the third trial, involved 451 patients with non-small lung cancer cell aged 70-89. It also shows the results of which survive well in the group taking the combination therapy.

In this experiment, participants were randomly selected to get one of the chemotherapeutic agent gemcitabine (Gemzar) or vinorelbine (Navelbine), or to receive carboplatin and paclitaxel (Taxol).

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What can produce complete lung whiteout?

So you looked at the patients chest x-ray and observed complete lung whiteout. Now you're wondering what the cause might be. The causes might be:

1. Mucus plug blocking mainstem bronchi:


2. Right mainstem intubation


3. Total lung collapse (massive pneumothorax)


4. Massive Pleural effusion


5. Massive hemothorax


6. Pulmonary edema


7. Severe pneumonia

Mediastinal shift may help you diagnose the above. More on Mediastinal shifts coming soon in a post called pneumothorax and hemathorax.  Stay tuned.

Source for this post: Xiong, Lian, "Complete Lung Whiteout," Nursing Critical Care, July 1, 2009.

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Should Advair be discontinuued while patient on systemic corticosteroids?

Your humble question:  A pt presented the ED with a mild asthma attack. She takes Albuterol PRN and Advair BID at home. The nurse practitioner ordered Duoneb Q4 and Perforomist Q12. At our our institution we supplement Symbicort for Advair so I naturally approached the NP wanting to try to keep the pt on something as close to her home meds as I could.

The NP said he did not want to "double" her up on corticosteroids since he also ordered her on oral corticosteroids.

So I guess my question is do you have any references about pt's inhaled long term controller meds like Advair and Symbicort being discontinued if they are also talking oral or injected Corticosteroids? The NP couldn't provide any references to why this his "preference" to do it this way.

My Humble Answer:  The amount of steroid in Advair is the equivalent of about 5mg of prednisone, and is essentially irrelevant when you're talking about systemic corticosteroids.  Another thing to note is Advair also has Serevent in it, of which the asthmatic should not stop taking when admitted to the hospital -- especially when admitted to the hospital.  A third factor is that studies show very few asthmatics are compliant with their home asthma medicine regime, so if you have a patient in the habit of taking his Adviar as prescribed, it should not be stopped while in the hospital.

So I wouldn't say there is a policy per se where I work, yet most of our doctors continue this medicine while a patient is admitted.  If it's not ordered, we RTs usually do as you did and recommend it.  While I'm not aware of any references that says as much, I think a little common sense should prevail here. 

However, in your NPs defence, I've noticed that many doctors like to use Ventolin as a preventative medicine instead of using Serevent.  So, so long as your patient is getting Q4 Ventolin and systemic steroids, there really is no medical need to continue Advair in the short term.  I don't particularly care for this technique as it results in many unnecessary treatments, yet I find it's also quite common. 

If you learn anything more, or find a reference, or your NP provides you with some sort of reference to prove her right, let me know so I can share it with my readers. If any of my readers have any further ideas, opinions, or references regarding this topic, please inquire within.

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Should Advair be discontinuued while patient on systemic corticosteroids?

Your humble question:  A pt presented the ED with a mild asthma attack. She takes Albuterol PRN and Advair BID at home. The nurse practitioner ordered Duoneb Q4 and Perforomist Q12. At our our institution we supplement Symbicort for Advair so I naturally approached the NP wanting to try to keep the pt on something as close to her home meds as I could.

The NP said he did not want to "double" her up on corticosteroids since he also ordered her on oral corticosteroids.

So I guess my question is do you have any references about pt's inhaled long term controller meds like Advair and Symbicort being discontinued if they are also talking oral or injected Corticosteroids? The NP couldn't provide any references to why this his "preference" to do it this way.

My Humble Answer:  The amount of steroid in Advair is the equivalent of about 5mg of prednisone, and is essentially irrelevant when you're talking about systemic corticosteroids.  Another thing to note is Advair also has Serevent in it, of which the asthmatic should not stop taking when admitted to the hospital -- especially when admitted to the hospital.  A third factor is that studies show very few asthmatics are compliant with their home asthma medicine regime, so if you have a patient in the habit of taking his Adviar as prescribed, it should not be stopped while in the hospital.

So I wouldn't say there is a policy per se where I work, yet most of our doctors continue this medicine while a patient is admitted.  If it's not ordered, we RTs usually do as you did and recommend it.  While I'm not aware of any references that says as much, I think a little common sense should prevail here. 

However, in your NPs defence, I've noticed that many doctors like to use Ventolin as a preventative medicine instead of using Serevent.  So, so long as your patient is getting Q4 Ventolin and systemic steroids, there really is no medical need to continue Advair in the short term.  I don't particularly care for this technique as it results in many unnecessary treatments, yet I find it's also quite common. 

If you learn anything more, or find a reference, or your NP provides you with some sort of reference to prove her right, let me know so I can share it with my readers. If any of my readers have any further ideas, opinions, or references regarding this topic, please inquire within.

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Twitter

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Lung Cancer Care to Stay Healthy

Lung Cancer Care - Having a healthy lung is everyone's dream, for it is the lungs must be kept healthy and strong.

"The lungs are organs of long-lasting as long as he was not attacked from outside, and cared for," says Norman H. Edelman, MD as chief medical officer of the American Lung Association (ALA), as quoted by Health.com, on Friday (20/5/2011).

But unfortunately many people who do not realize this, so without realizing some of his habits can actually damage the lungs.

Here are tips you can do to keep lungs to stay healthy and strong among others:
1. Doing sports

2. Do not smoke of any kind

3. Keeping the air clean

4. Eating the right foods

5. Using protective equipment when working

6. Using safe products

Some household products sometimes remove particles or gases that are harmful to the lungs. Try to avoid oil based products, products that release volatile organic compounds (volatile organic compounds/VOCs), avoid the use of ammonia and read the label carefully.

7. Improving indoor air

The air in the room also can affect lung health, such as the carpet is not clean, air freshener with hazardous chemicals, excessive use of candles or the workmanship of the building. To that provide good ventilation for the room and reduce the resources that affect the lungs.

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