What symptom is radiation pneumonitis?

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Once a disease such as radiation pneumonitis occurs, it will have a great impact on the health of patients. After the occurrence of such a disease, it will often lead to the symptoms of high fever, affect the health of patients, and also bring a lot of pain to patients. What are the symptoms of radiation pneumonitis?, Let's get to know.

What symptom is radiation pneumonitis?

Radiation pneumonitis is an inflammatory reaction caused by the injury of normal lung tissue in the radiation field after radiotherapy for lung cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, malignant lymphoma or other malignant tumors in the chest. Mild patients have no symptoms, and the inflammation can dissipate by itself; In severe cases, extensive fibrosis occurs in the lung, leading to respiratory dysfunction and even respiratory failure.

The occurrence and severity of radiation pneumonitis are closely related to radiation method, radiation dose, radiation area and radiation speed. The larger the radiation field, the higher the incidence; The lung tissue injury of large area radiation is more serious than that of local radiation. The faster the radiation speed is, the easier the lung injury is. Other influencing factors such as poor individual tolerance to radiation, lung original lesions such as pneumonia, tracheitis, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and radiotherapy are easy to promote the occurrence of radiation pneumonia. Some chemotherapeutic drugs may also aggravate the radiation response of the lung. The elderly and children have poor tolerance to radiotherapy.

Mild patients had no symptoms, more than 2-3 weeks after radiotherapy. They often had irritative, dry cough, with shortness of breath, palpitation and chest pain, no fever or low fever, occasionally high fever. With the aggravation of pulmonary fibrosis, dyspnea is gradually aggravated, and it is easy to produce respiratory tract infection and aggravate respiratory symptoms. Dysphagia occurred in patients with radiation esophagitis. If radiation damage ribs, rib fracture, local obvious tenderness. Physical examination showed that the skin at the radiation site atrophied and hardened, and dry and wet rales and frications could be heard in the lungs. Extensive and severe pulmonary fibrosis eventually leads to pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary heart disease.

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We hope that in the future we should pay attention to the prevention and treatment of radiation pneumonitis, and strive to stay away from such diseases and have good health.