What are the symptoms of lung cancer bone metastasis?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Tumblr
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• RSS Feed
• Link

What are the symptoms of lung cancer bone metastasis?

What are the symptoms of lung cancer bone metastasis? How to check? How to treat lung cancer bone metastasis?

The incidence and mortality of lung cancer rank first among cancers in many countries, and bone metastases often occur in lung cancer. How to deal with lung cancer bone metastasis?

At the same time, because lung cancer has no specific clinical manifestations in the early stage, many patients are diagnosed as advanced or even advanced stage, and bone is the site of lung cancer metastasis more frequently.

Patients with bone metastases are usually accompanied by obvious pain and even mobility disorders, which significantly reduces the quality of life of cancer patients. This article outlines the information you must know about bone metastases in the form of a question and answer.

1. The bones are so hard, why does metastasis occur?

In layman’s terms, cancer cells have transferred to the bone along with the blood flow. Bone metastasis is defined as “bone damage caused by a malignant tumor that originated from other than bone tissue and transferred to bone tissue through blood.” Although bone tissue is hard, it is still an organ and needs blood to supply nutrients. Naturally, if tumor cells appear in the circulatory system, the natural bone tissue cannot avoid metastasis even if it is hard. In fact, it is like lung cancer metastasized to the liver.

2. In addition to lung cancer, what other tumors are easy to metastasize to the bones?

In addition to lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, and gastric cancer are also prone to bone metastasis. Therefore, for almost all common cancer types, once new bone pain, mobility disorders, etc. appear, you must seek medical attention in time to rule out The possibility of bone metastasis.

3. Which bones are the areas with high incidence of lung cancer metastasis?

The common bone metastases of lung cancer are the proximal part of the spine and trunk. The spine includes 24 vertebrae in the cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacrum, located in the middle of the dorsal trunk, and bone metastases occurring in the spine can account for 50%; in addition, compare Common sites are the femur, ribs and sternum.

4. Why do bone metastases need early diagnosis and treatment?

There are two major types of cells, “osteoblasts” and “osteoclasts” in normal bones. As the name suggests, osteoblasts are cells for construction, and osteoclasts are cells for destruction, just like the construction of a city includes construction. At the same time, it also includes demolition. The bone tissue is dynamically balanced like all tissues of the human body. It is not like a built house. It experiences local destruction and reconstruction every day.

After lung cancer cells are transferred to bone tissue, the main activation is osteoclasts, which are the cells responsible for demolition. This breaks the balance between bone construction and demolition, and the stability of natural bone declines and is accompanied by the appearance of various symptoms.

Studies have shown that bone-related events (SREs) such as pathological fractures and spinal cord compression in lung cancer patients will significantly shorten the survival time of patients, so early identification and treatment of bone metastases are also important for prolonging the survival of lung cancer patients.

5. What are the main symptoms of bone metastases?

The first thing to emphasize is that not all bone metastases will have symptoms. About half of bone metastases are asymptomatic, which also reminds us of the necessity of regular and comprehensive review.

Among symptomatic bone metastases, bone pain is the most common, followed by pathological fractures. The manifestations of pathological fractures are very similar to those caused by trauma. Some patients have symptoms of spinal cord compression, such as similar to lumbar intervertebral discs. Outstanding performance, discomfort of lower limbs and even dysfunction of urine and bowel. There may also be manifestations such as increased blood calcium in the blood biochemical examination.

6. What tests are needed to assist in the diagnosis of bone metastases?

The best diagnosis method is biopsy, and bone metastases are no exception. Secondly, it includes nuclear medicine examinations, imaging and laboratory examinations. Specifically include: radionuclide bone scan (ECT), X-ray scan, CT, magnetic resonance examination (MRI), laboratory tests are what we usually call blood tests, indicating that bone metastasis indicators include blood calcium levels, The level of alkaline phosphatase and so on, but there are too many abnormal change factors in these two indicators, which require professional doctors to interpret it in conjunction with clinical and other auxiliary examinations. That is to say, the increase of a single index does not mean that it is bone metastasis. The following involves the diagnosis of bone metastases.

7. How to judge that bone metastasis has indeed occurred?

The current expert consensus has two diagnostic criteria for lung cancer bone metastasis:

• 01. Lung cancer diagnosis is clear + bone biopsy diagnosis
• 02. Clear diagnosis of lung cancer + typical imaging findings of bone metastases

Of course, the “imaging performance” in this diagnostic condition requires the expert opinions of specific imaging doctors and nuclear medicine doctors, which will generally be written in the report.

8. What are the current main treatments for bone metastases?

First of all, we need to be clear that lung cancer bone metastasis is what we call advanced lung cancer. Whether it is a single bone metastasis or multiple bone metastases throughout the body, it is the advanced stage of lung cancer. The main purpose of treatment is to improve the quality of life, prolong life and relieve symptoms.

The current main treatment methods can be divided into three categories:

The first category is the treatment for tumors, because even the tumor cells that have metastasized to the bone are still lung cancer cells, the treatment for lung cancer can also control bone metastasis. Specific to lung cancer includes targeted therapy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.

The second type of treatment is symptomatic treatment, combined with the symptoms of the fourth problem of bone metastasis, including analgesic treatment (medicine, intervention and surgical pain relief), radiotherapy at the site of bone metastasis, radionuclide therapy, and surgical treatment (pathological fracture And spinal cord compression fixation), interventional therapy (ablation, osteoplasty, and brachytherapy), bone-modifying drugs (bisphosphonates, denosumab) treatment.

The third category is other treatments, including psychotherapy and other content.

Based on the above, we understand what is lung cancer bone metastasis, the manifestations of lung cancer bone metastasis and the current possible treatment methods. As patients and their families, it is necessary to attach great importance to the signal of bone metastasis, find possible bone metastasis as early as possible and treat it in time.

For patients with bone metastases, it is necessary to pay attention to the risk of bone metastasis, especially for the transfer of weight-bearing bones such as the spine/femur, because once a pathological fracture occurs, the direct consequence is mobility disorder or even paraplegia, which is for people with underlying lung disease. The possible consequences for the patient cannot be estimated.

For patients with pain, please do not reject the use of painkillers. Pain can be controlled. For patients with cancer pain, there is no addiction to painkillers.

(source:internet, reference only)

Disclaimer of medicaltrend.org

Important Note: The information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice.