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The top killer
Cancer you don’t know about: November marks
Lung Cancer Awareness Month
Newswise — This year,
as in the past, lung cancer will kill more
Americans than any other cancer. In fact,
lung cancer will claim more lives than the
next four leading cancer killers -- breast,
prostate, colon and pancreas cancers --
combined.
The facts about lung
cancer are startling, and few people realize
the true scope of the disease. Gregory
Kalemkerian, M.D., co-director of thoracic
oncology at the University of Michigan
Comprehensive Cancer Center has provided the
top nine facts to know about lung cancer:
1. The death toll is
high. About 213,000 people are diagnosed
with lung cancer every year and more than
160,000 die from it.
2. For smokers, the
symptoms are familiar. Coughing, shortness
of breath, weight loss, fatigue and coughing
up blood are often the first symptoms of the
early stages of the disease. “The biggest
problem is that most people are diagnosed
late, because early stage symptoms are
common to smokers,” said Kalemkerian.
3. Late diagnoses make
it deadly. “Surgery is the most curable
treatment for almost any cancer but few
people with lung cancer come in early enough
for us to do this,” explained Kalemkerian,
professor of internal medicine at the U-M
Medical School. Most people seek treatment
only after experiencing symptoms that are
associated with spread of the disease, such
as chest pain, weakness in a limb or bone
pain. In fact, three-fourths of people with
lung cancer are diagnosed with advanced
forms of the disease.
4. There is an easy way
to prevent it. Smoking is the leading cause
of lung cancer. “Many of my patients feel
guilty that they have done this, not only to
themselves, but to their families,”
Kalemkerian said. About 90 percent of those
with the disease are or were smokers. A
two-pack-a-day habit for 30 years leads to a
30-fold to 40-fold increase in risk versus a
non-smoker.
5. Lung cancer patients
and survivors feel stigmatized. “Unlike
breast and prostate cancer, there is a
significant lack of survivor advocacy,”
Kalemkerian said. This is due in part to the
high mortality rate but also because of the
stigma that most patients brought it on
themselves by smoking.
6. Smoking is the
easiest way to get lung cancer, but not the
only way. Only 10 percent of cases are not
caused directly by smoking. Many assume that
certain occupational hazards, such as
firefighting, are at high risk. Kalemkerian
says this is not true: “There are few
occupational hazards that have been directly
related to the likelihood of getting the
disease.” Exposure to radon, asbestos and
hydrocarbons do raise one’s risk of
developing this type of cancer.
7. It is complicated to
treat. “Smokers, in particular, have had
phenomenal exposure to carcinogens, the
substances that cause mutations in cells and
lead to the development of cancer,”
Kalemkerian said. This makes the disease
harder to treat and more deadly. Cancers
have identifiable mutations that doctors are
now developing specific treatments against.
Kalemkerian explained that lung cancers,
because of the exceptional amount of
carcinogen exposure, have multiple mutations
that make treating and killing the mutated
cancerous cells especially hard.
8. Testing for it is
difficult. “We have yet to identify a
screening test that has impacted mortality
rates, but we are working on it,”
Kalemkerian said. More conclusive data
should be available in the coming years,
which researchers hope will produce a more
effective test to catch the cancer earlier
and save more lives.
9. It is a worldwide
killer. Worldwide, 1.2 million people per
year will die from the disease, and
diagnoses are rapidly increasing. Sharp
increases are being seen particularly in
developing countries as tobacco products
become increasingly available in these
regions, Kalemkerian said.
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