Along with cough, shortness of breath, chest pain or even prolonged fatigue and loss of appetite, foot pain is a rare but possible symptom of lung cancer.
- The formation of a blood clot at the level of the foot would be at the origin of the pain.
- The cancers that most often metastasize to the foot are kidney, breast, prostate, colon and lung cancers.
- In general, cancers that metastasize to the foot do not have a good prognosis.
With an estimated 33,117 deaths in 2018 in France, lung cancer remains today the leading cause of cancer death in the country. Most of the symptoms of the disease are known: shortness of breath, cough, pain in the chest, abnormal and prolonged fatigue, difficulty swallowing, loss of appetite or weight or neck edema. To this list must be added another sign of the disease: heel pain.
A relatively rare symptom
In June 2017, Dr. Stephen Darcy, professor of medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, reported the case of a 63-year-old patient who had been complaining of nagging heel pain for more than two months.
In the scientific journal The College of Family Physicians of Canada, he describes the link between pain and cancer. According to him, it is the formation of a blood clot in the foot that is the cause of the pain. “This phenomenon of acrometastasis of primary lung cancer in the foot remains relatively rare.”, he underlines.
not a good sign
The cancers that most often metastasize to the foot are kidney, breast, prostate, colon and lung cancers, adds the researcher. Foot bone metastases often present with swelling and pain. In general, cancers that metastasize to the foot do not have a good prognosis. Dr. Stephen Darcy cites a series of studies that estimate the average survival time at 12.3 months for patients with such symptoms.
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