Detect Lung Cancer in Its Earliest Stages

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in men and women in the United States and the leading cause of cancer death. As with any other disease, finding lung cancer in the early stages increases your chances of remission.

At Chuan Jiang Medicine PC in Flushing, New York, our board-certified pulmonologist, Dr. Chuan Jiang, conducts lung cancer screenings for those at high risk of developing this type of cancer. 

What’s lung cancer screening and who needs it? Here, we want to tell you about how we detect lung cancer in its earliest stages.

About lung cancer

Lung cancer is an abnormal growth of cells that starts in the lungs. There are two main types of lung cancer:

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

Most people diagnosed with lung cancer have NSCLC. This type of cancer is further grouped into types based on the cell where the cancer started  — adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. 

Current and former smokers are at greater risk of developing this type of lung cancer. 

The types of NSCLC grow at varying rates. Adenocarcinoma tends to grow slowly, while large-cell carcinoma grows quickly. 

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC)

SCLC is a fast-growing and aggressive lung cancer. By the time this type of cancer is found, it’s usually already spread to other parts of the body (metastasized). But SCLC responds well to cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy. 

Though NSCLC tends to grow slower than SCLC, it has often spread to other areas of the body before it’s found. Lung cancer screening for those at high risk can detect the cancer in the early stages before it metastasizes. 

Lung cancer screening for early detection

Because there’s such a strong link between lung cancer and smoking, screening guidelines center around current and former smokers ages of 50-80.

The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual lung cancer screenings for adults who have a 20-pack-year or more smoking history and smoke now or quit in the past 15 years. If you smoke one pack of cigarettes daily for 20 years or two packs a day for 10 years, you have a 20-pack-year history.

Lung cancer screening is a low-dose CT scan of the lungs. A CT scan is a type of X-ray that takes multiple pictures of the lungs to create a detailed image. At our practice, we get results from these scans quickly and discuss our findings with you.

Treating early-stage lung cancer

A positive lung cancer screening doesn’t necessarily mean you have lung cancer. But we do need to do more testing to get more definitive information, which usually involves imaging tests and a biopsy.

When found early, lung cancer responds well to treatments, which may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or targeted therapy. 

Are you a smoker or former smoker between the ages of 50 and 80? Do you have concerns about lung cancer? Schedule your lung cancer screening for early detection at our office by calling or clicking the “book online” button today.