Health Topic

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer forms in tissues of the lung, usually in the cells that line the air passages. It is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Also called: Bronchogenic carcinoma

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is cancer that forms in tissues of the lung, usually in the cells that line the air passages. It is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women.

There are two main types: small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. These two types grow differently and are treated differently. Non-small cell lung cancer is the more common type.

Anyone can develop lung cancer, but certain factors raise your risk of getting it:

  • Smoking. This is the most important risk factor for lung cancer. Tobacco smoking causes about 9 out of 10 cases of lung cancer in men and about 8 out of 10 cases of lung cancer in women. The more years you smoke and the more cigarettes you smoke each day, the more your risk goes up. Your risk is also greater if you smoke a lot and drink alcohol every day or take beta carotene supplements. If you have quit smoking, your risk will be lower than if you had kept smoking. But you will still have a higher risk than people who never smoked.
  • Secondhand smoke, which is the combination of the smoke that comes from a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by a smoker. When you breathe in secondhand smoke, you are exposed to the same cancer-causing agents as smokers, although in smaller amounts.
  • A family history of lung cancer.
  • Being exposed to asbestos, arsenic, chromium, beryllium, nickel, soot, or tar in the workplace.
  • Being exposed to radiation, for example from: Radiation therapy to the breast or chest
  • Radon in the home or workplace
  • Certain imaging tests such as CT scans

Lung cancer may not cause any signs or symptoms until the cancer is advanced. Sometimes the cancer is found during a chest x-ray done for another condition.

The symptoms of lung cancer may include:

  • Chest pain or discomfort
  • A cough that doesn't go away or gets worse over time
  • Coughing up blood
  • Trouble breathing
  • Wheezing
  • Hoarseness
  • Loss of appetite
  • Weight loss for no known reason
  • Feeling very tired
  • Trouble swallowing
  • Swelling in the face and/or veins in the neck

To find out if you have lung cancer, your health care provider:

  • Will take your medical history, which includes asking about your symptoms
  • Will ask about your family history
  • Will do a physical exam
  • May order certain imaging tests, such as a chest x-ray or chest CT scan
  • May order lab tests, including tests of your blood and sputum
  • May do a procedure to take a biopsy of the lung

If you do have lung cancer, your provider will do other tests to find out if it has spread through the lungs, lymph nodes, and the rest of the body. This is called staging. Knowing the type and stage of lung cancer you have helps your provider decide what kind of treatment you need.

If you have small-cell lung cancer, your provider may also do genetic testing to look for certain gene changes (variants) in your cancer cells. The results of the testing may help guide treatment.

For most patients with lung cancer, current treatments do not cure the cancer.

Your treatment will depend on which type of lung cancer you have, how far it has spread, your overall health, and other factors. You may get more than one type of treatment.

The treatments for small cell lung cancer may include:

  • Surgery.
  • Chemotherapy.
  • Radiation therapy.
  • Immunotherapy.
  • Laser therapy, which uses a laser beam to kill cancer cells.
  • Endoscopic stent placement. An endoscope is a thin, tube-like instrument used to look at tissues inside the body. It may be used to put in a device called a stent. The stent helps to open an airway that has been blocked by abnormal tissue.

The treatments for non-small cell lung cancer may include:

  • Surgery.
  • Radiation therapy.
  • Chemotherapy.
  • Targeted therapy, which uses drugs or other substances that attack specific cancer cells with less harm to normal cells.
  • Immunotherapy.
  • Laser therapy.
  • Photodynamic therapy (PDT), which uses a medicine and a certain type of laser light to kill cancer cells.
  • Cryosurgery, which uses an instrument to freeze and destroy abnormal tissue.
  • Electrocautery, a treatment that uses a probe or needle heated by an electric current to destroy abnormal tissue.

Avoiding the risk factors may help prevent lung cancer. For example, you can:

  • Quit smoking. And if you don't smoke, don't start.
  • Lower your exposure to hazardous substances at work.
  • Lower your exposure to radon. Radon tests can show whether your home has high levels of radon. You can buy a test kit yourself or hire a professional to do the test.

It sits within Cancers and Lungs and Breathing.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Cancer Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Lung Cancer

14,389 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

Start Here

Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Living With

Related Issues

Genetics

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Lung Neoplasms. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Lung Cancer, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.