Can an anxiety attack lead to the detection of lung cancer?

Question

Hello doctor,

I am a 49-year-old female, weighing about 154 pounds. I had a severe anxiety attack with chest tightness a few months ago and went to the hospital thinking it was a heart issue. During the evaluation, they did scans and unexpectedly found early-stage lung cancer. I had no typical symptoms before that.

Why did an anxiety attack in a 49-year-old with stage 1 lung cancer lead to early cancer detection?
Is it common for cancer to be found incidentally like this?

Kindly help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I read your query and understand your concern.

First of all, I would like to reassure you that lung cancer cells are very sensitive to treatment, and the word cancer is no longer as frightening as it used to be. Nowadays, we can treat it with many different treatment methods.

The fact that your lung cancer was discovered accidentally actually happens in many lung cancer cases, and that is why we have what is called a screening program, which is usually done for people above the age of 50, especially smokers or those who have a family history of lung cancer.

Sometimes people can have lung cancer without showing any symptoms because the lung is one of the largest organs in the body, so if one part is damaged, the remaining part can continue functioning normally, and the person may not feel that there is a problem.

Fortunately, you are lucky that it was discovered at an early stage. I personally prefer that you go for radiosurgery such as CyberKnife or IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation therapy) because it is much better than surgery.

Surgery can have many comorbidities and side effects and may clearly affect the general condition, while radiosurgery is very safe and tumor cells respond to it very well, with significant improvement.

I hope you are satisfied with my answer. For further queries, you can consult me at iCliniq.

Thank you.