Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States.
According to the Mayo Clinic, lung cancer is also the most preventable cancer. The primary risk factor of lung cancer is the length of time and number of cigarettes a person smokes.
The Centers for Disease Control ranks lung cancer as having more accounted deaths than breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer combined.
More specifically, 90,139 men and 69,078 women died from lung cancer.
Lung cancer is usually undetectable at its earliest stages. Most symptoms of lung cancer occur when the disease is advanced.
Some common symptoms include a new cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing up blood, chest pain, fever and weight loss.
Diagnosis of the cancer is based on a biopsy report reviewed by a pathologist. Lung cancer is usually categorized as either non-small cell or small cell depending on how the cells look under a microscope during the biopsy.
Treatment for lung cancer is based on the stage of the tumor and the patient's medical condition.
Options for treatment include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of all of these treatments.
Some of the current surgeries include mediastinoscopy, or sampling lymph nodes along the main airway in order to assess for spread of tumor; thoracoscopy, which involves accessing the chest through small incisions to diagnose and treat the cancer; wedge resection, or removing a small section of one lung; segmentectomy, which involves removing a part of the lobe of one lung; lobectomy,
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VATS
News 8's Todd Boatright showcases a new less invasive option to boost the odds of surviving lung cancer.
 
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or removing an entire lobe of one lung (the most common type of lung cancer surgery); sleeve resection, or removing a part of the airway; and pneumonectomy, removing a lung. Radiation is given with an external beam and can destroy cancer cells without surgery.
Radiation can be given before or after surgery, or before, during or after chemotherapy. Chemotherapy may include a variety of drugs prescribed and monitored by a medical oncologist. Chemotherapy can help radiation be more effective.
In video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, or VATS, surgeons use small multiple keyhole incisions to insert a long instrument into the body to do the work doctors hands would do in a lobectomy.
The advantages are that patients have less post-operative discomfort because the instrument allows the doctor to avoid spreading the ribs to get to the tumor, and a shorter hospitalization.
Experts have observed no significant difference in long-term outcomes between VATS and more traditional surgeries for early-stage lung cancer.
