Jan 99
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The answer is squamous cell carcinoma.
The three clues in the history give you this answer. The sex, history of smoking, and the location of the malignancy are all important predictors in pulmonary cancers. Below is a chart that illustrates the difference in histologic cell types in both female and male smokers.
You can see that male smokers suffer from squamous cell carcinoma most often while female smokers suffer from adenocarcinoma most frequently.
Another clue is location of the tumor. Squamous and small cell carcinomas are most often central while large cell and adenocarcinomas are most frequently peripheral. With these things in mind, a male smoker with a proximally located malignancy will most likely have a squamous cell carcinoma.
This is a CT scan with a large right upper lobe squamous cell carcinoma
Pictures are from WebPath