Who is at risk for lung cancer?

Long-term smokers, people with jobs related to lung dust, smoke or have relatives with the disease should be screened for lung cancer.

Lung cancer is one of the three most common cancers and is the leading cause of cancer death globally. In Vietnam, lung cancer is second only to liver cancer, with an estimated 23,000 new cases and nearly 21,000 deaths each year, and this number is constantly increasing.

On October 15, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Van Binh, Deputy Director of K Hospital, said that thousands of patients are diagnosed with lung cancer every year at this hospital. However, at the time of diagnosis, over 70% of cases have progressed or metastasized far away and do not require radical treatment.

"Symptoms of lung cancer are often unclear in the early stages, such as coughing, hoarseness, wheezing..., which can easily make patients subjectively think that they are symptoms of a respiratory disease," said Dr. Binh.

Hanoi residents screen for lung cancer. Photo: Le Nga

Nowadays, with the development of medicine, lung cancer patients are increasingly detected earlier, however, only about 30% of lung cancer patients come to the hospital at the stage where surgery is possible. Surgery always plays an important role in the radical treatment of lung cancer. Therefore, early detection of lung cancer when there are no symptoms is very important.

Signs of lung cancer are persistent cough, chest pain, hoarseness that does not go away, coughing up blood, wheezing, difficulty breathing, unexplained weight loss, headache, muscle aches...

Screening is a way to detect the presence of lung cancer in healthy people at high risk of the disease. The method is a low-dose CT scan to look for tumors. The earlier lung cancer is detected, the higher the chance of a cure.

Doctors at K Hospital perform surgery on a lung cancer patient. Photo: Ha Tran

The group that needs to be screened for lung cancer periodically are people with a history of smoking, especially for 20 years or more; people over 50 years old and have smoked for a long time (over 10 years); people who smoke more than 20 packs/year; people who are smoking or have quit within the past 15 years.

People aged 50 to 80; people who have had lung cancer and have been treated for 5 years or more; and people with a family history of cancer (lung cancer or any other cancer) that started before the age of 60 should be screened.

People whose occupations involve exposure to dust, smoke (cooking smoke, cigarette smoke, incense, asbestos), radiation; people with other cancers or chronic lung diseases (COPD, tuberculosis); patients in need of screening.

Passive smokers (relatives, spouses, and children of smokers) also need to be screened for lung cancer.

Doctors recommend screening once a year. Screening should be stopped when the person at risk is over 80 years old, has stopped smoking for more than 15 years and has been screened many times during that time but has not detected the disease, or has health problems that limit life expectancy or limit the ability to undergo lung surgery (e.g., severe cardiovascular disease, severe kidney failure, etc.).

Le Nga

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