WHAT IS LUNG CANCER

WHAT IS LUNG CANCER?
Lung cancer develops when normal lung cells sustain genetic damage that eventually leads to uncontrolled cell proliferation. Like all cancers, lung cancer cells have the ability to invade neighboring tissues and spread or metastasize to distant parts of the body. Left untreated, lung cancer eventually causes   death.
Lung cancer is sometimes referred to as bronchiogenic cancer or bronchiogenic carcinoma. The word bronchiogenic means originating from the bronchi, the airways of the lungs. Most lung cancers begin in the cells lining the bronchi of the lungs. There are two main types of lung cancer, and they are treated differently. Learning about your particular type of lung cancer can help you talk with your health care providers about your treatment choices. The more informed you are, the better prepared you will be to ask questions that will help you make the treatment choices that are best for you.

Lung cancer is a relatively new problem for human beings. In the early 1900’s, lung cancer was extremely rare. Although people have used tobacco for centuries, until the early 1900’s, it was most often smoked with a pipe, in a cigar form, or chewed. The machines to massproduce cigarettes were invented in the 1880’s, but it was not until after World War I that cigarette smoking became prevalent in the United States. During the war, American soldiers
were given free cigarettes donated by tobacco companies to the U.S. military. Many soldiers left the military with a lifelong addiction to the nicotine in tobacco products. At that time, the medical community did not realize the long-term impact of cigarette smoking on health.
There is usually a 20-30 year lag time between the onset of smoking and the development of lung cancer. In the 1930’s, doctors started to note a dramatic rise in the incidence of lung cancer. By 1950, several studies reported the apparent link between rising lung cancer incidence and the new wave of cigarette smoking.2-6 In 1964, Dr. Luther L. Terry released the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health that definitively established the
role of smoking as a contributing factor in the development of lung cancer and several other diseases.

Until recently, lung cancer was viewed primarily as a man’s disease. When lung cancer incidence first began to skyrocket, most cases were observed in men. This was because when cigarette smoking first became prevalent in this country, it was primarily among men. Over time, advertising campaigns aimed at women and other factors led to cigarette smoking eventually becoming almost as common in women as in men. The result of this unfortunate trend has been an ever-increasing incidence of lung cancer among women. Death rates from lung cancer in women increased an astonishing 550% between 1962 and 1992. In 1987, deaths from lung cancer among women surpassed breast cancer deaths. Today, for every three women that die of breast cancer, five women die of lung cancer.7 Clearly, lung cancer is no longer a man’s disease.