A lung nodule can cause problems if it compresses surrounding tissue, including the chest wall and blood vessels that supply oxygen to your heart and brain (the arteries). This can lead to shortness of breath, fainting spells (syncope), dizziness or lightheadedness when standing up quickly (orthopnea).
Feeling unsteady or losing your balance can be a result of lung cancer. A tumor may be located near the superior vena cava (SVC), a large vein that takes blood from your head and arms back to the heart. As the tumor grows, it can cause the blood to back up in this vein and cause dizziness or balance loss.
Benign lung nodules and tumors don't often cause symptoms, and they're often found accidentally on an imaging test. If they do cause symptoms, they can cause: Shortness of breath. Wheezing.
Most lung nodules don't cause any symptoms and are often found on a chest X-ray or CT scan performed for another reason. If symptoms are present, they may include: Coughing. Coughing up blood.
Most lung nodules are benign, or non-cancerous. In fact, only 3 or 4 out of 100 lung nodules end up being cancerous, or less than five percent. But, lung nodules should always be further evaluated for cancer, even if they're small.
Cancerous pulmonary nodules, however, are known to grow relatively quickly—usually doubling in size every four months but sometimes as fast as every 25 days. A cancerous nodule is a lesion or “sore” that steadily engulfs more and more of the structures of the lung.
The five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 56 percent for cases detected when the disease is still localized (within the lungs). However, only 16 percent of lung cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage. For distant tumors (spread to other organs) the five-year survival rate is only 5 percent.
Most lung nodules are scar tissue from past lung infections. Lung nodules usually don't cause symptoms. They're often found by accident on a chest X-ray or CT scan done for some other reason.
Feeling dizzy or lightheaded can be a side effect of cancer and its treatment. You may feel like you are about to lose your balance, faint or pass out, or feel like the room is spinning. Dizziness may get worse when you stand up, walk, climb stairs, or move your head.
If you have COPD, your air sacs are damaged, making it harder for the lung tissue to facilitate the transfer of oxygen from the air to the blood. This can cause shortness of breath, which may leave you feeling dizzy, weak or fatigued.
Dizziness has many possible causes, including inner ear disturbance, motion sickness and medication effects. Sometimes it's caused by an underlying health condition, such as poor circulation, infection or injury. The way dizziness makes you feel and your triggers provide clues for possible causes.
The location of the lung nodule may guide the care team in evaluating possible risk, and studies indicate that nodules in the upper lobe may be more indicative of cancer. However, not all nodules in the upper region of the lung are cancerous, and not all nodules located elsewhere are benign.
Biopsies are usually not recommended when nodules are small because it is very difficult to biopsy them safely. Doing a biopsy when a nodule is small can cause harm such as trouble breathing, bleeding, or infection. Biopsies are often done for nodules that are 9 mm or larger.
In many cases, a minimally invasive approach to remove the nodules can be used, which means the spot can often be removed with only a limited amount of lung tissue. The hospital stay is quite brief in many cases, and for most patients, surgery and removal of the nodule is the only treatment necessary.
Keyhole surgery can remove very small, early, non small cell lung cancers. The medical name for this operation is video assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). The surgeon makes 1, 2 or 3 small cuts on the side of your chest. They use a long, bendy tube called a thoracoscope.
In general, a lung nodule can be removed very safely and using a minimally invasive surgical approach. Your surgeon may want to perform a bronchoscopy to take a closer look at your nodules and take a biopsy. A biopsy involves removing a piece of your lung to look at it under a microscope.
Treatment for a cancerous nodule
A doctor may request a thoracotomy to remove a cancerous nodule. This surgical procedure involves removing the nodule through an incision in the chest wall. Additional treatments for cancerous lung nodules may include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other surgical interventions.
While the overall survival of the participants was 80 percent, the survival rate for the 139 participants with nonsolid cancerous lung nodules and the 155 participants with nodules that had a partly solid consistency was 100 percent. For the 991 participants with solid nodules, the survival rate was 73 percent.
Benign lung nodules can be caused by inflammation from a number of conditions. They include: Bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Fungal infections, such as histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis or aspergillosis.
Nodules greater than 10 mm in diameter should be biopsied or removed due to the 80 percent probability that they are malignant. Nodules greater than 3 cm are referred to as lung masses.
Lung nodules are small masses of tissue in the lung that can be cancerous, although the majority are non-cancerous. Dust and chemical exposure, infection or other tumors can all cause a lung nodule to form.
Lung biopsy procedures are not usually painful and have few risks that doctors associate with them. A doctor will only recommend a lung biopsy procedure to support their diagnosis. For example, if a person has smaller lung nodules, a biopsy may be too risky and difficult to justify.
In some cases, lung cancer can inflame the lining of the lungs or, tumours can press on the spinal column causing pain in the back, shoulder, neck or side.