Research Paper On Lung Cancer

The word cancer has a tendency to strike fear in individuals, seeing as how lung cancer is the leading cause of death in men and women this is completely understandable. In addition, there is only a 15% rate of survival for five years after being diagnosed (John, 2010). As these statistics show lung cancer is a serious disease and a diagnosis of lung cancer can drastically alter an individual’s life, therefore, proper patient education on lung cancer needs to be addressed. Being able to care for an individual recently diagnosed with late stage lung cancer gave the student nurse a unique opportunity of witnessing patient education by the physician and the ability to research current evidence based research on the management and education

There are different types of lung cancer. Some types grow much faster than others. Follow up tests include blood tests, a CT scan, and a biopsy. A CT scan is a test that creates images of the inside of your body and can show abnormal growths and a biopsy is when a doctor will remove a small sample of tissue from the lung. He or she will look at the sample under a microscope to see if it has cancer. Lung cancer staging is a way in which doctors find out how a cancer has spread. The right treatment will depends, in part, on the stage of your lung cancer, type of cancer, age, and other health problems. Treatment options include surgery to remove the cancer, radiation therapy to kill cancer cells, chemotherapy which is a group of medicines that kill cancer cells, and targeted therapy which is medicines that work only for cancers that have certain characteristics. People with cancer also receive treatment for any symptoms they

This study took ten participants between the ages of 48-67 that had been diagnosed with lung cancer ranging from eight months to two years. Six of the participants stated that they had Stage III lung cancer and the rest were unsure. Almost all of the patients had received both chemotherapy and radiation therapy, at the time of the study two participants were receiving chemotherapy as maintenance treatment. Participants identified functioning independently, physical well-being, connection with others, emotional well-being, and spiritual well-being as significant contributors to good quality of life. Fatigues was stated to have the most distressing and overwhelming effect on quality of life. This study suggests that patients try a variety of self-care strategies. It also states that healthcare providers should assess symptoms of fatigue and suggest evidence based strategies to improve fatigues and evaluate effectiveness of these strategies (John,