Lung cancer—not breast or uterine or ovarian cancer—claims more women’s lives every year than any other type of cancer. One of the reasons is that there’s no proven screening test for detecting early lung cancer, so the majority of patients (about 70 percent) are diagnosed once the cancer is advanced and has spread elsewhere in the body.
Back pain, headaches, weight loss, and fatigue are all typical symptoms of advanced lung cancer. Bone pain is also common, because that’s where lung cancer tends to spread first, Andrea McKee, M.D., chairwoman of radiation oncology at the Lahey Hospital and Medical Center Sophia Gordon Cancer Center in Burlington, Massachusetts, tells SELF.
But while the majority of people diagnosed with lung cancer don’t experience obvious symptoms in its early stages, some people may present with one really simple symptom early on: a chronic cough.
