Lung Cancer

- Lung cancers or lung neoplasms can be generally divided into 3 broad categories, namely:

• Primary lung cancer (where cancer develops in the lung tissue itself)
• Secondary lung cancer (due to deposits of cancer cells originating from other cancer organs)
• Mesothelioma (cancer of the layer of tissue (pleura) that surrounds the lung ) - not really a lung cancer per se.

- Primary lung cancers can be further classified into

• benign (cancers that do not spread to other organs)
• malignant (cancers that do spread)

- More than 20 bengin & malignant primary lung cancers have been identified & classified histologically.

- However, 90 - 95% of these lung cancers are bronchogenic carcinomas.

- About 5% are bronchial carcinoids and 2 - 5% are mesenchymal & other miscellaneous lung cancers.