Stroke and lung cancer seem to be two separate diseases. In fact, stroke is the first symptom of a considerable number of lung cancers. According to relevant medical statistics, this proportion accounts for about 16%.
How could stroke and lung cancer be so closely related? There are two main reasons for stroke in lung cancer patients: first, lung cancer patients often have increased blood coagulation factors and increased blood viscosity, which can easily lead to thrombosis, cerebral thrombosis and stroke; second, lung cancer is prone to brain metastases, and metastases can Involves the brain, cerebellum, brain stem and other parts, damages brain function, and has symptoms such as stroke-like slurred language, failure of physical activity, and even hemiplegia. Patients are generally first diagnosed in the neurology department, which may be misdiagnosed.
Because stroke is a common and frequently-occurring disease in the elderly, when symptoms similar to stroke appear, not only the patient, but also the neurologist may not consider lung cancer. In particular, many patients did not have pulmonary symptoms, which concealed the truth of the disease and were treated as ischemic strokes. However, the effect is often not good, and the condition has a tendency to gradually worsen, and lung tumors are found only after chest X-ray examination. Therefore, when the elderly have a stroke, the possibility of lung cancer should be considered, and a chest X-ray examination should be done routinely to exclude lung cancer, so as to avoid delay in treatment.
It should be reminded that lung cancer can have no symptoms in the early stage, because the tumor will not have cough symptoms when it does not touch the trachea; lung cancer does not touch the pleura, and there will be no chest pain; the tumor does not invade and destroy Bronchial mucosa and surrounding blood vessels, there will be no hemoptysis. Therefore, to detect lung cancer at an early stage, regular physical examinations and chest X-rays should be performed. Especially those who smoke and are over the age of 40 should have a chest X-ray every six months to a year. If a cough occurs, it is necessary to take a film in time when it does not heal after half a month of treatment. When symptoms such as cough with blood in sputum, chest pain, and pain fixed in one place, lung X-ray and CT examination should be done in time.
Text/Li Jie (Guanganmen Hospital, Chinese Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences)