Facts About Lung Cancer

Having the facts about lung cancer will help you come to terms with your disease and encourage you to get past it.

The facts about lung cancer tell you how serious the disease is; what the statistics are on diagnosis and death each year from lung cancer. It is a very common form of cancer. About 160,000 people die from lung cancer each year, more than the toll from prostate cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer combined.

Experts tell us that someone is diagnosed with lung cancer every 2 and 1/2 minutes.

Every three minutes, someone in the US will die of lung cancer.

Lung cancer accounts for about fifteen percent of all cancer diagnosis and up to 29 percent of deaths from cancer.

Most lung cancer diagnoses patients are either smokers or former smokers.Only fifteen percent of the time does lung cancer show up in people who have never smoked in their lives.

One of every thirteen men and one of every sixteen women will have lung cancer at some time during in their life. About two-thirds of these will die from it.

There are no screening tests for lung cancer, except for chest x-rays, which are not part of a routine medical exam.

It is estimated that fifteen percent of lung cancer patients will live five years past diagnosis. >br/>
Lung cancer is one of the deadliest kinds of cancer. Only 2 percent of patients whose lung cancer spreads throughout the body will live more than five years past diagnosis. If the lung cancer is found before it spreads through the body’s organs, the chance of survival increases by half. These lung cancer statistics may be hard for you to hear.

"Nearly 70 percent of people who come down with lung cancer will be more than 65 years old".

What is lung cancer?

The facts about lung cancer will tell you what the disease is all about. Lung cancer is a disease where some cells in the lung grow uncontrollably and spread to other body areas. The cancer cells also infect the normal cells of the lung and use nutrition meant for healthy cells.

Lung cancer can also block the air tubes, leading to pneumonia in the lungs that is hard to treat.

Lung cancer comes in several varieties. They are:

• Small cell lung cancer is a deadly form of lung cancer that occurs mainly in the upper parts of the lungs. The cells are small and look like oats under the microscope so the condition is sometimes called oat cell cancer of the lung. Small cell cancer makes up about 20 percent of all cancer.
• Squamous cell lung cancer is a type of cancer that forms in the lungs' air tubes, and is usually found in the middle of the lungs.
• Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer. It usually shows up on the outer parts of the lung. It accounts for about 30-40 percent of lung cancer.
• Large cell lung cancer is named that simply because it is made up of very large cancer cells. Ten percent of all lung cancer is large cell lung cancer.
• Some lung cancers begin in other body areas. Cancers like colon cancer can spread to the lungs and can look like lung cancer.

Facts about Lung Cancer Occurrence

The government compiles lung cancer statistics. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keep lung cancer stats. They report that more than 215,000 people will come down with lung cancer every year and that three-fourths of those patients will die.

The US National Cancer Institute has found that one out of fourteen people will develop lung cancer at some time in their lives. Nearly 70 percent of people-newly diagnosed with lung cancer will be more than 65 years old.

Smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer. Lung cancer was rare; in the days before people had the habit of smoking. It was in the 1930's smoking cigarettes became very popular. That is when, lung cancer became more common.

Secondhand smoke also causes lung cancer, even in people who have never smoked themselves. Exposure to environmental toxins like asbestos, fumes, chemicals and other toxins can also be a cause of lung cancer.

You can see why a person would have a hard time facing lung cancer. It is all too often fatal, and all too few people pull through, plus it is often due to their own bad habit of smoking.

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