Question: is lung disease a life threatening disease-is there a cure for it?

Kylie Belchamber answered on 13 Jun 2016:

There are lots of different types of lung disease, some we can cure, others we can’t.
Ones that we can cure include:
1. Pneumonia – this is a lung infection caused by a bacteria or virus, that makes you very sick. It can be treated with antibiotics if caused by a bacteria but if it is caused by a virus, you just have to been looked after very well. Most people get better, but if the infection is really bad, it can cause death.
2. Asthma – this is a tricky one! We don’t have a cure for asthma, but some people do grow out of it as they get older. We don’t really know why! We can treat it really well with inhalers that contain drugs that either make the lungs open up during an asthma attack, or drugs that reduce the inflammation in the lungs. It isn’t a cure though, and some people have it for life. Really bad asthma attacks can also kill people unfortunately.

Lung diseases that we cannot cure:
1. COPD – this is a long term lung disease caused mainly by smoking, where the lungs are inflammation and get lots of infections. People get worse and worse and we currently have no cure. All we can do is treat infections with antibiotics, and give them drugs to reduce inflammation.
2. Cystic fibrosis – this is a genetic disease where people have lots of mucus in their lungs that they struggle to get rid of. Again there is no cure, but some people have a lung transplant to give them a longer life. The disease also affects other organs, so there is no cure so far.

The other is lung cancer, of which there are a few types. The main treatment for this is to surgically remove the cancer, and give chemotherapy. The survival rates are low still, because people don’t find out they have it until it is too late. lots of scientists are researching this to try and find a cure!

There are lots more lung diseases, but we desperately need more cures as we don’t have many at the moment!