12 Potential Indicators of Lung Cancer: Recognizing Early Signs is Key

8. Coughing Up Blood Or Rusty Sputum

Many individuals who are affected by lung cancer often experience coughing up blood or rusty sputum as a symptom of their disease. The medical term used to describe coughing up blood from the respiratory tract is hemoptysis. Coughing up blood is a different symptom than when a patient bleeds from the throat, mouth, or gastrointestinal tract. Because the blood is mixed with air and mucus from the patient's lungs, it often comes out with a bubbly appearance. In most patients with this symptom, their blood will be bright red, but in some other cases, it may have more of a rusty coloring. Sometimes, the patient will cough up mucus that only has streaks of blood in it. In advanced cases of lung cancer where the malignancy has spread throughout a considerable part of the lungs, the affected individual may start coughing up actual blood clots instead of just bloody mucus. Lung cancer causes necrosis or scarring of the pulmonary tissues, which causes the lungs to bleed from outgrowing the blood supply for the tissues.