Getting information on lung cancer is fairly easy. Gone are the days when doctors, big tobacco companies and insurance companies tried to conspire to make your health an opaque maze of confusion and double-dealing. Today there are a surfeit of web resources that can give you information on lung cancer, from treatment options to payment options, to prognosis and analysis second opinions and beyond.
The most important information on lung cancer, though, should come from your doctor. He or she is the one with the most first-hand experience with your health, the one who’s going to be tasked with helping to cure you of this dreaded disease. And it’s worth remembering that, though trips to the doctor are almost universally hated, ninety-nine percent of doctors themselves are dedicated and honest professionals who want nothing more than to see their patients recover from whatever maladies happen to be afflicting them.
For some key information on lung cancer, we turn to the American Cancer Society website at cancer.org:
Lung cancer (both small cell and non-small cell) is the second most common cancer in both men (after prostate cancer) and women (after breast cancer). It accounts for about 15% of all new cancers. During 2009, there will be about 219,440 new cases of lung cancer (116,090 among men and 103,350 among women).
Lung cancer mainly occurs in older people. About 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with lung cancer are older than 65; fewer than 3% of all cases are found in people under the age of 45. The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 71.
Overall, the chance that a man will develop lung cancer in his lifetime is about 1 in 13; for a woman, the risk is about 1 in 16. These numbers include both smokers and non-smokers. For smokers the risk is much higher, while for non-smokers the risk is lower.
Black men are about 40% more likely to develop lung cancer than white men. The rate is about the same in black women and in white women. Both black and white women have lower rates than men, but the gap is closing. The rate of lung cancer has been dropping among men for several years and is fairly stable among women.
obviously the key statistic there is the smoking statistic. If you smoke, or live/work in a smokey environment, you are much, much more likely to develop lung cancer at some point in your life. If you don’t smoke and don’t hang out in smokey environments, then your chances of contracting the disease are significantly lower. Take that to heart and quit smoking today!