The effects of lung cancer on the patient's body can differ according to the type and stage of the disease. However, studies are now focused towards the impact of treatments intended to cure the disease in patients.

Although these have been recognized as temporary effects only, it still does produce enough good to the health of the patients.

What Are The Effects of Lung Cancer Treatments?

Since the treatment for the disease is essential to keep the cancer cells under control, several patients have overlooked the possible harm it can bring to their health. These are some of the more common treatment options for lung cancer.

1) Surgical Treatment
Effects of lung cancer treatment such as surgeries can often bring in more harm to the patient. Since it is a major operation, it exposes your chest area into the possibility of collecting air and fluid into it. Among the side effects known for lung cancer patients who have recently undergone surgery is difficulty in turning over, deep breathing, or even coughing. Since patients typically go through these activities, recovery might be slow. Activities such as deep breathing or coughing are essential elements in recovery since they enable extra air or fluid out of your lung area. Among the most common conditions cited shortly after undergoing lung cancer surgery include pain in your chest area or arms, and shortness of breath. It might need a week or two before a patient can find relief from such side effects.

2) Chemotherapy
When it comes to the side effects produced by this type of treatment for lung cancer, it varies according to the type and amount of drugs given the patient. The hazard comes in since chemotherapy does not solely target cancer cells, but also affect normal cells as well. Below are common side effects experienced by patients treated with chemotherapy:
• vomiting/nausea
• feeling of fatigue
• presence of mouth sores
• hair loss

3) Radiation Therapy
The effects of lung cancer treatments such as radiation therapy stems from the fact that, like chemotherapy, it affects your normal cells. Common side effects include the following: sore or dry throat, hard time swallowing, changes in the skin of the area of treatment, appetite loss, headaches, problems with memory retention, etc.

4) Photodynamic Therapy
This particular therapy sets its limits on the normal routine activities of a patient who has undergone this treatment. For six weeks or more proceeding the treatment, the patient's skin and eyes becomes hypersensitive to light.

Therefore, direct contact with sunlight must be avoided if possible, even indoors. Hence, protective clothing must be worn if the patient were to go outside. Other entailing conditions of photodynamic therapy include difficulty swallowing, coughing, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing.

Lung Cancer and Its Causation, Diagnosis and Treatment

INTRODUCTION
Lung cancer may also be the most tragic cancer because in most cases, it might have been prevented, 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. Lung cancer has long been the most common cause of cancer death in men and since 1987 it has also become the most common cause of cancer death in women. Lung cancer is the second most commonly occurring form of cancer in most western countries and although the lung cancer incidence is less common in developing countries, the rapid increase in the popularity of smoking will see the number of lung cancer sufferers in those countries quickly catch up with the western world.

Lung cancers can arise in any part of the lung, and 90%-95% of cancers of the lung are thought to arise from the epithelial, or lining cells of the larger and smaller airways (bronchi and bronchioles); for this reason, lung cancers are sometimes called bronchogenic carcinomas or bronchogenic cancers.

The most common type of lung cancers are epidermoid carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma.

Most experts agree that lung cancer is attributable to inhalation of carcinogenic pollutants by a susceptible host. Two other factors also increase susceptibility: exposure to carcinogenic industrial and air pollutants (asbestos, uranium, arsenic, nickel, iron oxides, chromium, radio active dust, and coal dust.) and familial susceptibility.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
Because early lung cancer usually produces no symptoms, the disease is often in an advanced stage when first diagnosed. Late stage signs are: with epidermoid and small cell carcinoma; smokers cough, hoarseness, wheezing, dyspnea, hemoptysis and chest pain. With adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma; fever, weakness, weight loss, anorexia and shoulder pain.

DIAGNOSIS
Firm diagnosis requires chest x rays, sputum cytology, CT scanning, bronchoscopy the examination of pleural fluid and biopsies. Other tests to detect metastasis include bone scans, bone marrow biopsy and CT scans of the brain and abdomen.

METASTASES
Lung cancer most often spreads to the liver, the adrenal glands, the bones, and the brain. Lung cancer that has metastasized to the bone causes bone pain, usually in the backbone (vertebrae), the thighbones, and the ribs. Lung cancer that spreads to the brain can cause difficulties with vision and weakness on one side of the body.

Lung cancer may grow into certain nerves in the neck, causing a droopy eyelid, small pupil, sunken eye, and reduced perspiration on one side of the face; together these symptoms are called Horner's syndrome (see Autonomic Nervous System Disorders: Horner's Syndrome). Lung cancer may also spread through the bloodstream to the liver, brain, adrenal glands, spinal cord, and bone.

TREATMENT
Treatment for lung cancer depends on the cancer's specific cell type, how far it has spread, and the patient's performance status. If investigations confirm lung cancer, CT scan and often positron emission tomography (PET) are used to determine whether the disease is localised and amenable to surgery or whether it has spread to the point where it cannot be cured surgically. Treatment is usually a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Chemotherapy can be used as a first line treatment for lung cancer or as additional treatment after surgery. Radiation therapy can be directed at your lung cancer from outside your body (external beam radiation) or it can be put inside needles, seeds or catheters and placed inside your body near the cancer (brachytherapy). Radiation therapy can be used alone or along with other lung cancer treatments. Radiation therapy can also be used to lessen side effects of lung cancer.

Treatment may not be as effective for patients with bone or liver metastases from lung cancer, excessive weight loss, ongoing cigarette use, or pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease or emphysema. At some point, if you and your oncologist or primary care physician agree that treatment no longer is advisable, hospice care can provide comfort.

One common form of treatment today for localized prostate cancer is radiation therapy which uses high energy x-rays to kill cancer cells. These x-rays can either be delivered using an external radiation beam or by implanting radiation 'seeds' into the prostate gland.

External beam radiation therapy treatments are normally given on a daily basis 5 days a week (Monday to Friday) for anything up to about 6 or 7 weeks and each treatment, which is painless, lasts for just a few minutes. (Such treatments are also commonly given to patients whose cancer are no longer localized to the prostate gland but have spread into the pelvis and can also be used to relieve pain and reduce tumors in cases of advanced prostate cancer.)

In cases where tumors are large it is also common to give hormone treatment alongside radiation therapy in order to block the action of the male hormones which feed the growth of prostate cancer tumors. External beam radiation targets not only the prostate gland but also the seminal vesicles, to which prostate cancer can readily spread. In previous forms of this treatment it was also common to irradiate the pelvic lymph nodes but today this is only done in a minority of cases where evidence suggests that this is necessary.

There are generally few immediate side-effects to external beam radiation other than fatigue and possibly diarrhea when radiation is applied to the rectum, but both of these soon pass once treatment is completed.

Longer-term affects include impotence which affects about 40% to 50% of patients. This figure is however declining with the introduction of computer technology which now allows treatment to be tailored precisely to the anatomy of the patient with far more precise targeting than has previously been possible.

Turning to internal radiation therapy, this is a procedure in which dozens of tiny seeds are implanted directly into the prostate gland to deliver a high dose of radiation directly into the affected tissue.

Ultrasound is used to guide very thin needles from the perineum into the prostate gland to deposit the tiny seeds of palladium and iodine in a pattern which has previously been mapped using a very sophisticated computer program. One alternative approach is to use more powerful temporary seed implants which are introduced over several days and possibly to combine this with low dose external radiation therapy. This procedure does however require hospitalization.

Internal radiation therapy carries few side-effects and normally leads to impotence in less that 15% of patients under the age of 70. It is not however suitable for everybody, especially men with large tumors or those who have undergone a transurethral resection of the prostate for benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Do Men With Prostate Cancer Who Undergo Surgery Need Radiation Therapy, Too?
There are a number of treatment options for men with prostate cancer. These include a surgical procedure, known as radical prostatectomy, as well as radiation therapy. Are there any situations wherein a man who undergoes a radical prostatectomy will need radiation therapy afterwards?

The answer is yes, in special circumstances. The reason is that radiation therapy can increase the odds of survival for such men.

A recent study reviewed the data of 635 men with rising PSA levels after radical prostatectomy. In the study, 160 of the men received salvage radiation therapy, 78 received salvage radiation therapy and hormonal therapy (which lowers the level of prostate cancer stimulating male hormones in the blood stream), and 397 received no treatment.

Over the ensuing ten years, of the men who received salvage radiation therapy alone or radiation therapy plus hormonal therapy, the rate of death from prostate cancer was nearly 60% less than that of the men who were not treated.

Salvage radiation therapy is noted to be most beneficial for men with rising PSA levels when it is administered promptly after the problem is identified. In contrast, if radiation therapy for men with climbing PSA levels is deferred more than two years after the initial PSA spike, no benefit is noted.

Additional analysis revealed that the beneficial effect of salvage radiation therapy was confined to those men, whose PSA levels doubled in less than six months, suggesting that a rapid PSA doubling time is indicative of more aggressive disease.

Therefore, the good news is that for men whose PSA levels climb after radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy can be life saving.