Question

a 67 y.o. female patient who presents with c/o dyspnea and a chronic cough for weeks. She is a smoker since she was a teenager. This is a follow-up visit after testing has been completed. Testing completed included:

Pulmonary Function Testing which show a definite blockage in her airflow;

A Chest X-Ray which shows a lesion

Bronchoscopy washings which showed malignant cells.

Histology is a squamous cell carcinoma

Her diagnosis is bronchogenic lung cancer.

This patient is scheduled for surgery, followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Surgery will remove the bulk of the tumor, and the radiotherapy is expected to shrink the remaining tumor cells. The chemotherapy is aimed at mnetastatic liver tumors that were discovered. The patient has stopped smoking.

Why did the cancer metastasize before she had enough signs and symptoms to see out her physician?

Answer 1

Reason some may not know that they have cancer is symptoms may not appear untill it grows in size.

And bronchogenic lung cancer signs and symptoms may be so mild that people does not know that they have cancer and the cancer may spread rapidly.

But in this case the patient has chronic cough for weeks.The most common symptoms of brochogenic lung cancer is worsening cough which the patient have in this case.