It’s a fact: Lung cancer No. 1 killer
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| Dr. Justin Baker discusses lung cancer treatment with Danny Smith. |
Dr. Justin Baker, a cancer specialist at Medical Specialty Clinic, treats patients with lung cancer and knows the harsh effects of the disease. Lung cancer kills more people than any other cancer, he says, and the best way to prevent it is to not smoke.
“The patients I see who smoke rationalize what they are doing,” Baker says. “They don’t think they’ll get cancer or they feel they can quit whenever they want. Some say, ‘smoking helps me stay thin or it calms my nerves.’ It’s amazing with what we know about cancer today that a person can rationalize that the short term pleasure of smoking outweighs the long-term risk.”
Smokers may rationalize, but that doesn’t change the facts.
• Lung cancer is the number one killer among all cancers.
• Eighty-seven percent of the people who are diagnosed with lung cancer are smokers. Smoking increases your risk of getting lung cancer 30 fold.
• Those who quit smoking cut their risk for lung cancer in half. The effect of smoking on the lungs, though, still increases the risk for lung cancer for another 30 to 40 years.
• Other risk factors for lung cancer include exposure to second-hand smoke and other carcinogens, such as radon gas and asbestos.
• Eighty-five percent of the people who are diagnosed with lung cancer die of lung cancer. The American Cancer Society estimated that there were 174,000 new cases of lung cancer in 2006 and 162,000 people who died of the disease.
Harmful substances in tobacco damage the cells in the lungs and create an environment for those cells to become malignant, Dr. Baker explained. “You are insulting your lungs every time you smoke.” (And, he adds, that’s just one of many health risks affected by smoking and tobacco products.)
Lung cancer has a high percentage of deaths because the standard for lung cancer screening available today doesn’t seem to have an effect on saving people’s lives, Dr. Baker says. A colonoscopy, for example, detects precancerous polyps in the colon. Self-breast exams and mammograms help catch breast cancer early. The survival rate for both of those cancers continues to grow as more of those cancers are detected early.
However, he adds, there’s uncertainty among resear-chers and the medical community about the benefits of screening for lung cancer. Screening through CT scans and chest x-rays probably detects some lung malignancies early and increases the number of people who are being treated for lung cancer, but screening doesn’t seem to be catching the cancer early enough to save lives, Dr. Baker explains. Most lung cancer is diagnosed after the disease is advanced or has spread to other parts of the body.
“The purpose of screening is to detect the cancer early, treat it, cure it, and help people live longer,” Dr. Baker says. “With lung cancer screening, we may only be subjecting patients to unnecessary treatment.”
Still, there is hope that a particular patient will beat the odds. “Every patient is different,” he says, “and if a patient can handle treatment, there’s no reason not to try.”
Depending on the stage of the cancer, treatment can include surgery to remove the diseased lung, chemotherapy and radiation. “The goal of chemo-therapy once the cancer has spread is to give the patient 10 to 12 months to live, he explains. It sounds bleak because it is bleak. The bottom line with lung cancer, says Dr. Baker, is…
• There is no medication available to prevent cancer in those who have a high risk for getting it.
• There is no standard for effectively screening for lung cancer early enough to save lives.
• Once you are diagnosed with lung cancer, treatment most likely won’t cure you.
Here’s a better bottom line, he says. “If you don’t want to get lung cancer, don’t smoke. If you do smoke, quit.”