Lung cancer: how is it diagnosed?
If your doctor suspects you might have lung cancer, or some other lung disease, they'll want to do some tests. These may include:
- chest X-rays, which show quite a few lung diseases, including most lung cancers; and
- sputum cytology, where the doctor collects sputum from the lungs and looks at it under a microscope.
To get a good look inside the windpipe and the bronchi (the 2 tubes that carry air from the windpipe to the lungs), the doctor may use a bronchoscope. This is a thin flexible tube with a light and a video camera on the end. The tube goes in through your nose or mouth. (You have a local anaesthetic, so that it doesn't hurt—although it might be uncomfortable.) The doctor can see inside your airways on a TV.
Biopsy
The only way to be absolutely sure whether something unusual in the lungs is cancer is to look at a bit of it under a microscope. This is called a biopsy.
Sometimes a piece of the suspected cancer can be collected through the bronchoscope, the tube that's used to look at the airways.
If the suspicious-looking bit of lung can't be reached with the bronchoscope, your doctor may use a thin, hollow needle to take a small piece of the lung out through the chest. It's done with a local anaesthetic so that it doesn't hurt. This is called fine needle aspiration.
Sometimes the doctor has to do an operation to get a piece of the tumour for a biopsy. But usually it can be done with the bronchoscope or fine needle aspiration.
The doctor may also order a CT scan—a type of X-ray that shows more detail than an ordinary X-ray.
Staging
If it turns out that you do have lung cancer, more tests are done to find out how big the cancer is, how aggressive (fast-growing) it is, and how far it has spread. This is called 'staging' the cancer, and it helps to decide on the best treatment.
For further information and advice, call the Cancer Helpline on 13 11 20
Last Reviewed: 03 January 2002
