The most common oncological pathology among the male population of the world is pulmonary cancer, which is caused by the penetration of various types of carcinogens like cigarette smoke, chemical industrial emissions, impurities in harmful industries, etc.
Cancerous processes do not appear immediately, so patients often turn to the oncologistalready with an advanced disease that rarely yields to therapeutic effects.
How does the cancerous process start in the lung tissue?
Primary symptomatology of pulmonary cancer is important, because its timely detection prompts the patient to visit a specialist and helps diagnose oncology processes in the early stages of their development.
On the onset of pulmonary oncology speak such manifestations:
- Frequent and causeless, difficult to treat pulmonary inflammations and bronchitis;
- Frequent shortness of breath, first after physical exertion, and then at rest;
- Cough, initially dry, and then accompanied by sputum discharge. Coughing attacks occur suddenly and are rarely disturbed, but with further oncological progression, they appear more often, accompanied by the discharge of sputum with bloody veins;
- Thoracic pain;
- Persistent and causeless hyperthermia of a subfebrile nature( 37.5-38 ° C);
- Angina pectoris;
- Depressive state associated with chronic fatigue.
Indications for examination
The most common diagnostic method is a blood test. But the general investigation does not give the necessary picture of the state at the initial stages of the oncology process. Therefore, specialists for a long time searched for other ways of early diagnosis of pulmonary cancer.
Some protein substances are especially unique and are found only in the presence of certain oncology, others are universal cancer markers and are detected in a variety of tumor processes.
Study allows:
- To detect a tumor at the initial stage of its onset;
- To determine the nature of the neoplasm, the degree of its malignancy;
- Time to detect metastasis of the tumor process;
- Determine the effectiveness of therapy and monitor the progression of pathology;
- Avoid possible exacerbation or relapse of the tumor;
- Prevent the occurrence of cancer, for example, in people at risk of oncology.
And yet, for certain, it is impossible to say about the presence of cancer only from the results of blood tests. Therefore, the diagnosis of pulmonary cancer includes a whole range of studies.
How to detect pathology with blood?
Laboratory blood test shows the level of erythrocyte and leukocyte cells, hemoglobin content, sedimentation rate, etc.
When carrying out biochemical and onocomarker analysis, specialists receive more accurate and informative data on the patient's condition.
Some patients are particularly encouraged to take blood tests with a prophylactic goal.
To the group of such patients it is possible to attribute:
- Smokers;
- People with a hereditary predisposition to pulmonary cancer;
- Those who work in hazardous industries work with heavy metals or poisonous chemical compounds;
- Suffering chronic respiratory pathologies such as obstruction or pneumosclerosis, etc.;
- Contact with radon;
- Living in ecologically unfavorable areas, large cities with air polluted with exhaust gases, etc.
General blood test for lung cancer
In general blood analysis, biomaterials are extracted from the finger( from the capillary) to an empty stomach in the morning hours.
On the eve of blood sampling it is not recommended to eat fatty, heavily digestible dishes, because in the blood will be found a high content of leukocytes. In addition, the results distort the results of the stress state, physical overstrain, etc.
. Also indicative is the hemoglobin level, which for professionals acts as a kind of indicator indicating the development of the tumor.
Against the background of progressing oncology processes, hemoglobin indices are often about 60-70 units. In addition to erythrocytes and hemoglobin, the presence of cancer can be indicated by a high content of leukocytes.
Therefore, OAK is often very informative, but only on this study to judge the presence of a tumor can not. The revealed deviations in the general study indicate the need for a comprehensive survey.
Biochemical
A biochemical blood test can also show a specialist that a patient develops a tumor pathology. Before taking blood in about 12 hours, the patient must give up eating and drink only ordinary water.
In pulmonary cancer, biochemical blood counts will contain such information:
- Increased α-2-globulin content;
- Serum albumin deficiency;
- Excess calcium levels;
- Excessive lactodehydrogenase;
- Increased cortisol.
Biomaterials are taken from a vein, after 3-5 days a second biochemical study is carried out. Such actions are necessary to monitor the dynamics of oncomarkers.
Analysis for oncological markers
As previously clarified, the tumor produces specific protein substances, which are also called oncomarkers or antigens.
In accordance with the variety of oncomarkers, it is possible to determine the localization of the cancer process. Normally, the body cells inhibit the production of antigens, so their presence in the blood indicates the presence of oncoprocess.
Similar blood tests need to be done multiple times to track the dynamics of tumor processes. Such studies allow to determine the rate of increase in the concentration of tumor markers, which will help predict the progression of the tumor process.
Oncomarkers for lung cancer also pass in the morning, to study the blood is recruited from the vein. It is necessary to exclude alcohol several days before the study.
Such diagnostics are distinguished by high cost, and the results can give inaccurate. The indicators of the level of some oncomarkers increase against the background of myocardial and hepatic insufficiency, hepatic cirrhosis and gastric ulcer, pancreatitis, etc.
Tumor markers
Most often in the diagnosis of pulmonary cancer, such oncomarkers are used:
- REA - refers to oncomarkers of a universal nature, helps to determine the presence of oncopathologyin 50-90% of patients. It is cancer-embryonic antigen, the level of which rises not only in cancerous tumors, but also in hepatic cirrhosis;
- TPA - tissue polypeptide antigen, is a common antigen produced by various formations;
- NCE or neurospecific enolase - used in the detection of small cell varieties of pulmonary cancer;
- SCC, CYFRA 21-1 - used in the detection of squamous cell lung cancer or adenocarcinoma.
A slight excess of antigen content in blood may be due to less "aggressive" processes than cancer, so this analysis must be combined with other diagnostic procedures.
Preparation for delivery
Blood tests are always given on an empty stomach and only in the mornings, the last time you can eat before the test is 8-12 hours. From drinks it is allowed to drink only water.
It is also not recommended to undergo the procedure shortly after a massage, physiotherapy, bath, radiographic examination or some other instrumental diagnosis.
If the patient has already been treated, repeat tests for cancer markers are given 3 months. Usually immediately after therapy the concentration of antigens drops sharply, but if such a reaction is not available, then a change in the therapeutic approach is necessary.
Video on preparation for blood tests: