Cancer in the Lungs

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Lung cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in one or both lungs. These abnormal cells do not carry out the functions of normal lung cells and do not develop into healthy lung tissue. As they grow, the abnormal cells can form tumors and interfere with the functioning of the lung, which provides oxygen to the body via the blood.
Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in the both men and women worldwide. Lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the most common cause of cancer related deaths in women. Cigarette smoking is the primary risk factor for development of lung cancer. Passive exposure to tobacco smoke can also cause lung cancer. Statistics from the American Cancer Society estimated that 228,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed and around 159,000 deaths due to lung cancer would occur in 2013. According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, approximately one out of every fourteen men and women will be diagnosed with cancer of the lung at some point in their lifetime.
Lung cancer is predominantly a disease of the elderly; almost 70 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer are over 65 years of age, while less than 3 percent of lung cancers occur in people under 45 years of age.
Lung cancers can arise in any part of the lung, but 90 to 95 percent of cancers of the lung are thought to arise from the epithelial cells, the cells lining the larger and smaller airways (bronchi and bronchioles); for this reason, lung cancers are sometimes called bronchogenic cancers or bronchogenic carcinomas. Cancers can also arise from the pleura (called
Funderburk 2 mesotheliomas) or rarely from supporting tissues within the lungs.
There are two major types of lung cancer, which are non-small cell lu...

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...because doctors tend not to find the disease until it is at an advanced stage. Five-year survival is 40 to 50 percent for early stage lung cancer, but only 1 to 5 percent in advanced, inoperable lung cancer. Lung cancer survival rate (16.3%) is lower than many other leading cancer sites, such as the colon (65.2%), breast (90.0%) and prostate (99.9%). The five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 52.6% for cases detected when the disease is still localized (within the lungs). However, only 15% of lung cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage. For distant tumors, that are spread to other organs, the five-year survival rate is only 3.5%. Over half of people with lung cancer die within one year of being diagnosed.

Works Cited

Cancer Care webpage www.lungcancer.org
American Cancer Society webpage www.cancer.org
American Lung Association webpage www.lung.org

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