A simple finger test can give people an early sign of lung cancer which they can do at home. Lung cancer can spread quicker than other forms of the disease, with nearly 40,000 people being diagnosed every year. Often lung cancer symptoms often do not show up until after the cells have spread through the body.
However, potential patients are able to spot a few early symptoms of the illness. Some of the common symptoms include shortness of breath, wheezing and a persistent cough with blood or phlegm. While many of the symptoms tend to be respiratory, there is one early telltale sign of lung cancer that appears on your fingertips - here's what you need to know.
When you press your fingernails together, do you see a tiny diamond-shaped window of light? If you can't see this gap, you could have finger clubbing, which when the ends of your fingers swell up - and this could be a sign of lung cancer. The condition happens in stages, starting at the base of the nail, which becomes soft. Then the skin next to the nail bed become shiny, after which the nails begin to curve more than normal when looked at from the side.
Finally, the fingers may get larger and swell due to fluid collecting in the soft tissues of the fingers. While not having this diamond-shaped gap between fingernails doesn't automatically mean you have lung cancer, there is a possibility it's a symptom. So, the best course of action is to speak to your doctor if you spot it.
One lung cancer patient Brian Gemmell , whose .
