(kontumtv.vn) – According to doctors, lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death. People at high risk of lung cancer are often those who regularly smoke cigarettes, tobacco, or are exposed to kitchen smoke, vehicle exhaust, glass blowers, blacksmiths, etc.

According to Globocan, in 2022, Vietnam recorded 24,426 new cases and 22,597 deaths from this disease. In Vietnam, lung cancer is also the leading cause of cancer death in both sexes. There are two main types of lung cancer: small cell lung cancer (accounting for about 20%) and non-small cell lung cancer (accounting for about 80%), of which small cell lung cancer progresses faster.

Photo caption
Master, Doctor Su Jang Wen (Singapore) performs lung cancer surgery using VATS method at FV Hospital. Photo: BV

Smoking is the main cause of 90% of lung cancer cases. Smokers are about 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. Some people have a genetic predisposition to develop lung cancer if they smoke.

Master, Doctor Vu Truong Son, Medical Director, FV Hospital said that annual lung cancer screening is necessary for people who smoke cigarettes, tobacco, and are regularly exposed to vehicle exhaust, kitchen exhaust, and smoke from honeycomb coal, etc. to help detect cancer at an early stage, increase the chance of cure, and save costs.

For example, the case of patient VV M (73 years old, living in Quang Ninh ) has a history of smoking tobacco continuously for more than 50 years. In recent years, his son has taken him for annual health check-ups, including lung cancer screening by low-dose CT scan of the lungs. During the regular screening in December 2024, doctors discovered a solitary ground-glass opacity of about 1.2 cm in his lungs.

According to imaging and medical documents, especially on people with a history of smoking tobacco for many years like Mr. M., this ground-glass opacity discovered is 70% likely to be lung cancer. Through testing, Mr. M. was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, very early stage.

“Thanks to annual low-dose CT scans of the lungs, Mr. VVM discovered lung cancer at a very early stage. As a result, the lung tumor was completely surgically removed, increasing the patient’s survival rate to 100%. It is estimated that if the cancer was detected at a later stage, such as stage 2, the surgery would be more complicated, the survival rate would be only over 60%, and the cost would increase more than 10 times,” Dr. Vu Truong Son informed.

According to Dr. Vu Truong Son, modern means of screening and diagnosing early-stage lung cancer today include low-dose lung CT, respiratory function testing, transthoracic biopsy, ultrasound-guided bronchoscopy (EBUS), virtual navigation ultrasound technology, marking lesions with color markers (ICG) and a series of other modern diagnostic techniques for pathology, immunohistochemistry, and advanced gene mutation identification.

Doctors recommend that, in addition to annual lung cancer screening, smokers should quit as soon as possible, because quitting smoking can also greatly reduce the risk of lung cancer.

Dan Phuong/Tin Tuc Newspaper