Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma Essay

The human body, like most living organisms, needs energy to survive. Specifically, the lungs play an important role in the body’s energy production through gas exchange. Gas exchange occurs in the alveoli of the lungs when the body breathes in air. In this process, a cell’s mitochondria burns the oxygen from the air, converting it into ATP, also known as energy, and yields carbon dioxide and water that the body exhales. Because energy is vital to survival, it is necessary for the organs that aid its production to function properly. Pulmonary adenocarcinoma is a specific type of lung cancer that hinders the body’s ability to properly function and affects thousands of people each year.
To understand the meaning of pulmonary adenocarcinoma,
one must break down the term; “pulmonary” is defined as anything relating to the lungs, while “adeno” means gland or glands, “carcin” is an interpretation of cancer, and “oma” relates to a tumor and other abnormal growths. This means that pulmonary adenocarcinoma is a lung cancer that causes abnormal cell growth in the glands of the lungs. In order to completely understand the development and activity of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, one must first recognize the definition of cancer in general. The word cancer is used to describe diseases where abnormal cells rapidly divide and often invade surrounding tissues (“NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms.” 1).
The body is made of trillions of cells; these cells constantly die and replicate. However, when cancer occurs, these cells become abnormal and do not die while new, mutated cells continuously produce past what the body requires. When this occurs, cancer cells can gather into tissues and potentially spread. Pulmonary adenocarcinoma is a type of non small cell lung cancer that slowly develops in the glands of the lungs. SCLC spreads more quickly than NSCLC; pulmonary adenocarcinoma is one of the three types of non small cell lung cancer and is the most common type of lung cancer.(WHAT DO I CITE). E2 Pulmonary adenocarcinoma has causational factors that one can abstain from, and factors that, in some cases, one cannot control. Although the causes for adenocarcinoma are not specifically determinable, causational factors are traceable because it is a non small cell lung cancer. Smoking is the leading cause of NSCLC; however, adenocarcinoma is the most common type of cancer in nonsmokers as well. In some cases, inherited gene changes affect a person’s risk of pulmonary adenocarcinoma through hereditary DNA mutations, and acquired
gene changes can often occur throughout one’s life due to risk factors such as tobacco, secondhand smoke, exposure to radon, and exposure to asbestos (Schiller 5-6, 9-10). Because risk factors such as smoking and exposure cause a mutation to the DNA of lung cells over a person’s lifetime, abstaining from these risks lowers one's chances of pulmonary adenocarcinoma. However, when a cell’s DNA is altered due to inherited gene changes, that cell begins to become abnormal and divides rapidly. Once these cells continue to grow, they form masses of tissue called tumors in the alveoli of the lungs. Although one can take precautions to lower his or her risk, pulmonary adenocarcinoma cannot always be prevented. Many complications arise from pulmonary adenocarcinoma that make the disease painful for its victim, one of which is difficulty breathing.
Shortness of breath and chest pain that worsens with full breaths and laughing are symptoms associated with NSCLC (Schiller 15). Shortness of breath associated with pulmonary adenocarcinoma leaves a victim with the inability to properly breathe in a sufficient amount of air. This symptom worsens the pain one feels because he or she is forced to take in deeper breaths to accommodate for the lack of oxygen in his or her system. Often, rapid, shallow breathing occurs to prevent pain and acquire more air. Pleural effusion is also a symptom that prevents effective breathing. Pleural effusion occurs when cancer cells spread to the pleura which is a layer in the lungs that creates fluid in the lungs that assist in breathing. When these cancer cells spread, they create a buildup of fluid which strains breathing (“Pleural Effusion.” 1). The liquid that the pleura creates reduces friction that prevents the lungs from rubbing against other organs when one breathes. With a buildup of fluid, the amount of pressure created causes friction that causes breathlessness. Metastasis is a complication of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, as well as other cancers, that causes pain in other areas of the body. Metastasis is described as the spread of cancer from one part of the body to another; in pulmonary adenocarcinoma, metastases are able to spread from
the lungs to other organs, such as the brain, bones, adrenal glands through lymph nodes, and the blood stream (“How Lung Cancer Develops.” 1). The metastases are able to travel through the lymph nodes in and around the lungs and attack other vital organs in the body. Even though the cancerous cells originated in the lungs, once the cells have reached organs such as the brain and liver, it increases the severity of pulmonary adenocarcinoma and is often capable of causing death. Although pulmonary adenocarcinoma starts as cells that have mutated, it is capable of producing complications that make one’s quality of life difficult to withstand and, in most cases, causes death. Although pulmonary adenocarcinoma is often fatal, standard treatments exist that are capable of reducing the cancer and, in some cases, is able to terminate it. In the early stages of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, one can receive surgery as a treatment option. In stage I and II of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, surgeons are often able to remove the part of the lung that contains the cancerous tumor (“Lung Cancer 101.”). When a person is able to locate pulmonary adenocarcinoma in the earlier stages, it is easier for him or her to treat it. The majority of the time, surgery is the treatment most likely to terminate pulmonary adenocarcinoma by getting rid of the majority, if not all, of the tumor. Another common treatment option is chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Chemotherapy and radiation are often used in stage III when the tumor cannot be surgically removed. In this treatment, the chemotherapy and radiation are used together in order to shrink the tumor in an attempt to surgically remove it when it is small enough. Chemotherapy is also used post surgery to prevent a tumor from returning (“Lung Cancer 101.” 1). Chemotherapy is a common standard treatment that is used to reduce the severity of stage III and IV pulmonary adenocarcinoma and in fewer cases is also able to cease the cancer entirely. Targeted therapy drugs are also used to stop pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, targeted treatment drugs such as erlotinib are able to attack cancer cells rather than all cells. Specifically, erlotinib is able to block the epidermal growth factor receptor, a receptor on the cell surface that causes cancer cells to grow and spread (“Lung Cancer 101”). Targeted treatment drugs allow a cease in pulmonary adenocarcinoma growth making it easier to manage and allowing one to then focus on shrinking and eliminating the tumor. Because pulmonary adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer, and lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths, standard treatments are useful in aiding the control and termination of the cancer’s growth. Immunotherapy is a non small cell lung cancer treatment that has recently been approved; however, researchers are experimenting new ways to use these drugs in treatment. Nivolumab is an immunotherapy drug that researchers are using to test its effectiveness in patients with limited treatment options. Every two weeks, patients with advanced non small cell lung cancer were given three mg per kilogram of body weight of nivolumab compared to docetaxel (Brahmer 123). Because patients with advanced NSCLC have less treatment options, researchers are testing how immunotherapy drugs such as nivolumab can be used to better survival rates compared to standard treatments that are more common. Researchers have used this experiment to test overall survival among patients. The patients were observed throughout the experiment for survival, as well as for three months after treatment had been ceased (Brahmer 125). The studying of the patients’ survival allows researchers to determine if the immunotherapy is a better treatment option that can be used as standard treatment for patients with an advanced stage of non small cell lung cancer. Results of the study showed that the immunotherapy drug is the better option for the advancement of previously treated advanced stage non small lung cancer treatment. Over the course of a year, nivolumab resulted in forty-two percent survival among patients compared to a twenty-four percent among those who received docetaxel (Brahmer 128). Those who used immunotherapy had a higher rate of overall survival while the chemotherapy resulted in a lower percentage and more deaths. Although the survival through immunotherapy is less than fifty percent, it is a newer treatment option that is still being improved and has the potential to become a standard treatment. Researchers are also exploring the use of vaccines to treat and prevent non small cell lung cancer. They are studying the effects of telomerase peptide vaccination in patients with non small cell lung cancer. A phase II trial of telomerase peptide vaccination has been tested on previously treated stage III NSCLC patients (Brunsvig 6847). The testing of this vaccination on patients with advanced stages of NSCLC allows researchers to test whether or not vaccination is a viable treatment option. The objective of the trial allowed researchers to find the vaccination’s effect on slowing the cancer’s growth. The phase II trial had a primary objective to test immunologic response and also found the toxicity and time to progression (Brunsvig 6848). By testing the vaccination for these factors, researchers were able to find if the immunologic response affected the patient's’ ability to prohibit growth and if the vaccine slowed the progression of the disease. The results of the trial showed that the vaccine was effective in immunologic response. The study demonstrated that those who responded to the vaccine showed an eighty percent rate in immune response compared to those who did not (Brunsvig 6853). The vaccine caused an immune response that shows it has the potential to be effective. Although the method of vaccination is still undergoing trial, it has the potential to be a treatment method that slows growth and elicits an immune response that prevents it.