A real case of “fighting” lung nodules
I have been in the outpatient clinic all the year round, I have witnessed countless patients, I have experienced the impermanence of life, and I have also felt the tenacity of life. Today I want to share with you a Despair and miracle coexist real-world examples.
The patient comes from an ordinary family in Guangdong. The family of three lives in harmony and happiness, but the disease has come so mercilessly, and misfortunes do not come singly. First of all, the elderly father was found out Advanced stage of lung cancer, the old man has been in good health and joined the army before, but even with such physical fitness, he could not resist the “entanglement” of the disease. He tried many times of targeted therapy. All ended in failure.
At a time when the family was full of despair, my daughter was diagnosed with a 10mm or so ground glass nodule.
I still remember her helpless look when she was in my clinic that day, she said, “Director Qiao, am I also having lung cancer? In April this year, my father The physical examination found lung cancer. After my father took the targeted drug, there was no effect. Will I do the same? Should I have surgery to remove it immediately?”
I looked at her confused eyes and said, “If a pulmonary nodule is discovered for the first time, it should be followed up for three months to rule out inflammation, and the next thin-slice CT will be followed for accurate diagnosis. The follow-up does not disappear. If not, surgery can be done to cure it.”
In the end, fortunately, the patient’s nodules were successfully removed, and her body gradually recovered. When I went to the ward to see her, her expression was completely different from when I was in the outpatient clinic. became cheerful.
This is a happy ending. It can be seen from this case that pulmonary nodules are not as scary as we think. Pulmonary nodules refer to normal lungs. When an abnormal thing grows, in layman’s terms, it grows a pimple.
Are lung nodules really that scary? Don’t panic! This article makes it clear to you
It means that pulmonary nodules are the concept of imaging, not the concept of pathological diagnosis, nor the concept of accurate diagnosis.It refers to the CT and X-ray examination reports that are Nodular lesions within 3 cm of increased density appeared in the lung tissue.
Actually, many people have pulmonary nodules. The authoritative department of our country has made a statistic that there are 1.4 billion people in China, and more than 100 million people have pulmonary nodules. .
What causes lung nodules? What are the types of lung nodules? Answers below
So why does our lungs grow out of something? There are only two reasons: One is inflammation (bacterial infection, infectious granuloma, inflammatory disease), two is tumor lesions (primary lung cancer, lung metastases) ).
There are three types of lung nodules according to density:
1. Solid nodules: All the nodules are soft tissue density nodules, the density is relatively uniform, and the patient’s blood vessels and bronchial images are covered.
2. Partial solid nodules: The nodules contain both ground glass density and solid soft tissue density, and the density is not uniform.
3. Ground-glass density nodule: refers to the blurred nodule in the lung, and the nodule density is slightly higher than that of the surrounding lung parenchyma, but the outline of blood vessels and bronchi is still visible.
According to the number of pulmonary nodules, they can be divided into two categories:
1. Solitary pulmonary nodules: Many solitary pulmonary nodules are asymptomatic, with clear borders, increased density, ≤ 3 cm in diameter, and surrounded by air-bearing lung tissue soft tissue shadow.
2. Multiple pulmonary nodules: 2 or more pulmonary nodules are defined as multiple, and multiple pulmonary nodules usually manifest as a single pulmonary nodule with one or more small nodules. It is generally believed that >10 diffuse pulmonary nodules are mostly caused by malignant tumor metastasis or benign lesions (inflammatory diseases caused by infection or non-infectious factors).
From the above, we know that not all pulmonary nodules are serious, so not all pulmonary nodules need treatment. It is the key to determine whether pulmonary nodules need treatment. To determine the nature of the nodule.
The treatment of pulmonary nodules is also divided into three cases, not “one size fits all”
1. If it is benign and old (scars left by previous pneumonia infection), no treatment is required.
2. If it is inflammation, anti-inflammatory treatment is required. Nodules are acute inflammatory infections, which need to be treated with antibiotics and antiviral drugs to control nodules and control inflammatory infections.
3. If it is a tumor, targeted therapy is required. Surgery, anti-tumor drugs, or even radiotherapy and other multidisciplinary comprehensive treatments may be used, depending on the nature of the nodule and the different stages of the nodule.
How do we know if our lung nodule is malignant and needs to be removed?
Teach you to judge the “good and evil” of lung knots from three points
1. Looking at imaging: If it looks irregular, strange, ugly, it may not be very good; smooth and neat looking is mostly benign of.
2. Look at the size: If the size of a pulmonary nodule is less than 5 mm, the risk of cancer is very low, and the larger the possibility, the higher the possibility.
3. Look at the family medical history: If there is a family history, especially if the direct blood relatives have had tumors and lung cancer, then this kind of pulmonary nodules should be highly valued.