A family member has been told that they have a shadow on their lung. They are in the process of seeing specialists, but I was just wondering what other possible explanations are there for this, apart from lung cancer. (There is a family hx of lung cancer)

When a patient is seen, there are many kinds of observations made beyond specific tests such as temperature, is the patient coughing, is there nasal drainage, is there returning phlegm when the patient coughs, what color is it, how much is there, is there shortness of breathe, was there traumatic injury, that sort of thing.

Shadows seen in x-rays and those sorts of scans only say that SOMETHING is there. Along with the total picture of everything else the patient is evincing (as above mentioned) Doctors begin to take tests. These tests are as much to RULE OUT problems as to identify WHAT the problem is, if you see what I mean.

There could be hundreds of reasons for the shadow, but without an idea of what else the patient is showing, there is no way to really provide additional ideas here and now.