Carcinoma of the Lung

Abstract

Carcinoma of the lung is a complex disease, difficult to diagnose, more difficult to treat. Its pathology is varied, its symptomatology protean. Detection of the disease in its early stages is largely by radiology, which can show very small lesions in x-ray films of the chest. Definitive diagnosis may require many procedures and much clinical acumen since carcinoma of the lung imitates many other pulmonary lesions. Studies of the cytology of the sputum can be of great value in establishing the diagnosis. Lung scanning after administration of isotopes, a new method of examination, warrants further study. Some patients are cured by surgery; some have symptoms alleviated by radiation; a few are best treated with both. Most cases, as now seen, are incurable; but that with a small lesion is far from hopeless, and even those patients with large lesions may occasionally be cured. Surgical results in cases with cancers less than 2 cm in diameter and discovered before the onset of symptoms, are encouraging enough to warrant intensive investigation of such lesions, excisional biopsy if necessary to establish the diagnosis, and then lobectomy or pneumonectomy. It is not clear that more extensive surgery holds sufficient advantage to justify the additional risk.