What kind of lung cancer did paterno have

Treatment options include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen said. Cohen said that catching the disease early is crucial to improving chances for survival. White men who discover their lung cancer early have a chance of being alive five years later. Signs of lung cancer include coughing up blood, a new cough or a changed chronic cough, wheezing and chest pain, becoming hoarse, weight loss and bone pain, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Symptoms may not be evident in the early stages of lung cancer. Just last month, a study funded by the National Cancer Institute showed that getting a routine X-ray to detect lung cancer didn't lower the amount of lung cancer-related deaths among both smokers and nonsmokers, the Associated Press reported. The earlier the stage, the better -- stage 1 lung cancer means that the cancer is small and is only in the lung and hasn't spread anywhere else, while stage 4 cancer means that the cancer has spread far to other parts of the body.

Treatment and curing of the cancer often depends on the stage of the cancer. Paterno joins numerous other celebrities who have battled lung cancer.

News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. He often walked into news conferences fighting back sniffles, and Paterno often passed it off as nothing more than an annoying cold. He was said to be in good health this preseason -- getting back to his routine of walking around town -- before a receiver accidentally blindsided him during preseason drills in August, leaving him with an injured right shoulder and pelvis.

Known for his stubbornness and high pain threshold, Paterno walked away from the collision and stayed on his feet for the rest of the practice period before being encouraged to get checked out by a doctor. The injuries forced him to spend most of the season in the press box. During the offseason, Paterno scaled back personal appearances because of an intestinal issue and an adverse reaction to antibiotics prescribed for dental work. Paterno ran practices from a golf cart in and spent much of that season in the press box after injuring his hip while trying to show players how to perform an onside kick in practice.

Two years earlier, he broke his leg in a sideline collision during Penn State's game at Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium. Lung cancer kills 1. In the United States, , new cases and , deaths are expected this year. The disease is typically diagnosed in older people. About 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with lung cancer are over age Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society. He has no involvement in Paterno's treatment.

While the surgery can be invasive, people who undergo the operation "can do well after that," he said. The lights were dim Friday night at Paterno's modest ranch home next to a park near the end of a dead-end street. A few TV photographers waited across the street for any sign of the coach.

About a mile away, a steady stream of fans arrived in pairs to take pictures at the life-sized bronzed statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium. Jill Varady, 24, of York, said she found out about Paterno's illness after her aunt posted a comment on Facebook.

Paterno, 84, was head coach for the Nittany Lions for 46 years until the board of trustees fired him and Penn State president Graham Spanier on November 10, in the wake of charges against Sandusky.

The letter was dated Thursday and released by the university on Friday. Emmert outlined several questions that university officials must answer as part of its probe. Sandusky was charged on November 5 with multiple counts of child sexual abuse for acts committed on eight boys over a year period.

Two senior university officials were charged with perjury for giving false testimony to a grand jury.