large mass on lung

My sister had a scat scan and they found a lrg mass on her lung.. she is not a smoker but she has had pnemonia (pneumonia) several times. Could this be lung cancer???

[National Jewish]

A large mass could well be a tumor, and have contributed to pneumonia, but it may not necessarily be a malignant tumor.  It could be a benign tumor that is pressing on a bronchial tube and making it hard to cough out mucus and, with mucus build-up, pneumonia could develop.

The first step should be to determine the nature of this mass.  That could probably best be done with a bronchoscopy and biopsy.  A bronchoscopy is a procedure that is done under local rather than general anesthesia to create conscious sedation, which is like a light sleep.  During this procedure a bronchoscope is passed through your nose into your windpipe to look into your lungs.  A bronchoscope is a flexible tube with a small camera at one end.  With the bronchoscope tiny pieces of lung tissue can be taken for further testing.  This is called lung biopsy.