CAN YOU GET LUNG CANCER AFTER QUITTING SMOKING?

Lung Cancer: The Leading Cause of Cancer Death

Lung cancer has emerged as the leading killer of men and women stricken with invasive cancer, affecting husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, and causing suffering for many families. In the United States, lung cancer overtook breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in 1987. Lung cancer deaths account for a quarter of all American cancer deaths, killing more people every year than prostate, breast, and colon cancer combined. Over 157,000 Americans are estimated to have died from lung cancer in 2015.

This disease is difficult to detect in its early stages, and treatments for lung cancer in its later stages provide a poor prognosis: Those with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer—the most common type—have an estimated 1 percent survival rate five years after diagnosis. The other type of lung cancer—small cell lung cancer—is even more aggressive. According to the American Cancer Society, the overall survival rate for lung cancer as of Jan. 1, 2014 stands at just 3%.

Ask the experts

I heard that you can still get lung cancer even if you stop smoking, is this true?

Doctor's response

It is true that when you stop smoking cigarettes you still carry an increased risk of developing lung cancer.

People who stop smoking before age 50 cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who continue to smoke. Ten years after quitting smoking, the lung cancer death rate is about half of a continuing smoker's.

However, the risk of other cancers, stroke, and coronary heart disease is also reduced when someone quits smoking, and in some cases is reduced to that of a non-smoker.

source

 MedicineNet.com