In recent years, doctors have noted an increase in cases of lung cancer. Lung cancer most often affects people aged 50-60 years. The deep location of the tumor inside the chest, its connection with the lungs – an organ necessary for breathing, and therefore for human life, the proximity of the affected focus to the heart, large vessels make the operation for lung cancer quite difficult. And although the modern success of Soviet surgery gives patients (with timely access to a doctor) a guarantee of cure from this disease, it is clear that it is better to prevent the disease, in particular to treat it in a timely manner. Precancerous lung diseases usually occur after inflammatory processes in them. They occur in men compared to women in about the ratio of 8: 1. Yes, it is men who are more likely to suffer from pneumonia, pleurisy, lung abscess, bronchial dilation (bronchiectasis) and so-called pneumosclerosis, i.e. the formation of dense, solid foci in the lungs that are unable to participate in gas exchange. In the late XIX and early XX century. it was known that precancerous lung diseases usually occur with various irritations of the lung tissue. This depends on whether a person protects himself from the penetration of these chemical and mechanical stimuli into the bronchi and lungs. Nature has provided man with a safety device in the form of very sinuous nasal passages, covered inside with small hairs. The air passing through the nasal passages is subjected to natural filtration. In the human nose, a large number of mechanical and chemical stimuli accumulate, which, when mixed with mucous secretions, form solid clusters that dry up in the nose. However, many people breathe through their mouths. Such breathing does not protect the lungs from entering them with chemical and mechanical stimuli. In some people, breathing through the nose is disrupted due to various diseases of the nasal passages: the curvature of the nasal septum, the curvature of the formations inside the nose, the so-called shells, as well as due to atrophic processes in the nasal mucosa, when its villous structure is lost and little mucus is released. Some people breathe through the mouth simply due to lack of training to breathe through the nose and the habit of breathing through the mouth. You should practice nasal breathing. This is a very real preventive measure against inflammatory lung diseases. It should be noted that the nasal passages not only filter out dangerous impurities in the air we inhale, but also warm the inhaled air. This protects people from inflammatory catarrhs in the autumn, winter and early spring months. Tobacco smoke is of great importance in relation to the occurrence of precancerous diseases and lung cancer; especially strong irritation of the upper respiratory tract and the lungs themselves is caused by tobacco tar, which settles from tobacco smoke. Proof of this is the established fact that among lung cancer patients 98 % of smokers.
The study of the histories of patients with lung cancer has shown that almost always cancer occurs against the background of a chronic disease of the bronchi or lung. This is chronic bronchitis (in 90 % of cases, smoker’s bronchitis), frequently recurring pneumonia, focal compressions of the lung tissue, polypous growths on the bronchial mucosa, etc. Patients suffering from these diseases should be under the systematic supervision of a doctor. Chronic lung diseases, as a rule, have a very persistent, long course and are difficult to treat, so their prevention is particularly important.
Chronic, often recurring pneumonia (inflammation of the lungs) with its long-term existence can be a focus from which lung cancer occurs in the future. Especially dangerous is the presence of such chronic pneumonia in persons who, either as a result of bad habits, or as a result of long-term Smoking, constantly expose their lungs to chemical and mechanical irritations. Treatment of chronic pulmonary inflammation is currently developed in detail. Physiotherapy and climate therapy have a good effect. A patient with chronic, recurring inflammation of the lung should be on the dispensary register and follow all the doctor’s instructions. With persistent and careful treatment, a person can be freed from their dangerous, cancer-causing, inflammatory focus in the lungs. All that has been said about chronic pneumonia applies equally to pleurisy. Frequently recurring pleurisy, if the causative agent is not tuberculosis, but at the same time an existing lung disease, must be persistently and energetically cured.
Lung abscesses occur in patients as a result of prolonged acute inflammation of the lungs, when the inflammatory focus turns into an abscess. This is manifested in the fact that the patient begins to expectorate purulent sputum, which has a putrid smell. However, if the lungs are severely affected by suppurative process or unsystematic treatment, neglect of timely treatment by the patient himself, such an acute lung abscess can turn into a chronic one.
With a chronic lung abscess, patients long secrete purulent sputum and gradually get used to it. Especially this habituation occurs in those patients whose sputum is released in a relatively small amount (from 5 to 100 g) and is devoid of an unpleasant smell. The surrounding gradually get used to the fact that the man is coughing up purulent sputum. In such cases, the disease does not cause any noticeable loss of ability to work, and very often patients return either to their work, or somewhat lower their qualifications, switching to lighter work. This habitual discharge of sputum leads to the fact that the patient stops going to the doctor, believing that this is his natural state. Smokers are especially inattentive to the large discharge of sputum, who believe that this is the result of irritation of the bronchi and lungs with tobacco. Very often in these patients, heavy Smoking silences the urge to cough and leads to a decrease in sputum. There are a number of other forms of chronic suppuration of the lungs, characterized by the fact that a period of relative prosperity at normal temperature with a small amount of purulent sputum, followed by a period of exacerbation, when suddenly a fever, increasing cough, sputum becomes very much, the smell of her changed, and the patient for a few days it becomes disabled. Timely treatment usually after a more or less short period of time leads to a fading of the process, performance is restored, the patient’s health improves, he begins to work again and enters his normal rhythm. However, long-term chronic suppuration of the lungs in 10-12 years can serve as the basis on which cancer occurs. A factor that contributes to the occurrence of cancer, in such cases cases are the purulent sputum itself, which irritates the bronchi and causes a constant cough. And the second reason is tobacco Smoking, when the mucous membrane of the bronchi, irritated by purulent sputum passing through it, receives another irritating effect, i.e. tobacco smoke. Thus, persistent, persistent, timely treatment of suppurative processes in the lungs, Smoking cessation serve as a prevention of lung cancer. The next lung disease, which also refers to precancerous, is bronchiectatic disease, in which the bronchus expands (bronchiectasis). The bronchi may be congenital, and frequently occurs after inflammatory processes in the lung (influenza pneumonia, bronchopneumonia, whooping cough, lobar pneumonia, etc.). Bronchiectasis may not bother the patient for a long period of time until the conditions for the arising in them of suppuration, festering and bronchiectasis are not only a precancerous condition, but very heavy suffering. When the flu, as is known, there is a swelling of the nasal mucosa, larynx and trachea with the release of a large amount of secretions. This leads to normal nasal passages becoming slit-like, making it difficult to breathe through the nose. If the flu-like inflammatory process descends through the bronchi, it can also reach the mucous membranes of the bronchiectases; the latter swell, secrete a large amount of secretions, and the excretory trunks of the bronchi, their mucous membranes also swell, and the secret accumulated in the expanded bronchi can not be emptied through the trachea and throat. Stagnation of the secret in the expanded bronchi leads to their suppuration. There are inflammatory changes both in the expanded bronchi and in the lung itself. If patients are not subjected to persistent and patient therapeutic treatment, then suppuration of bronchiectases takes a chronic form and with a long existence can serve as a ground for the emergence of lung cancer. There is another very bad habit in people that can also lead to suppuration of bronchiectasis – this is the way to talk while eating. In most cases, a person coughs violently and expectorates food particles from their bronchi and trachea. However, if they have penetrated very deeply, they settle in the small bronchi, block its lumen and cause a purulent inflammatory process in the surrounding lung tissue. Many doctors, especially surgeons, observe such patients. During operations in the bronchi find the kernels of nuts, sunflower seeds, etc. Treatment of chronic purulent diseases currently being surgeons. In the vast majority of cases, it allows you to save the patient from this disease and thus protect against the possibility of lung cancer on its soil. When a chronic suppurative process affects any one lobe of the lung, its removal is shown, but if the entire lung is affected, then the lung is also removed. These operations are now well developed by Soviet surgeons, and the element of risk is minimized. They give a final and lasting recovery. Therefore, patients with chronic suppuration of the lungs should treat their disease with full attention and carefully carry out the treatment that the doctor prescribes, and if they are ordered to perform surgery, they must consent to the operation, since even if these purulent diseases cause lung cancer, everything is not lost, because such patients with lung cancer are successfully operated on. Of great importance in the detection of precancerous lung diseases, the initial stages of lung cancer is the fluorography of the chest cavity. This method of preventive diagnostics is currently widely used in Russia.