Lung Cancer
Lung
Cancer
Lung Cancer Defined
The
body is made up of many types of cells. Normally, cells
grow, divide, and produce more cells as needed to keep the
body healthy and functioning properly. Sometimes, however,
the process goes wrong and cells become abnormal, forming
more cells in an uncontrolled way.
These extra cells form a mass of tissue, called a growth
or tumor. Tumors can be benign, which means not cancerous,
or malignant, which means cancerous. Lung cancer occurs
when a tumor forms in the tissue of the lung.
Anatomy: Lungs. - Click to enlarge in new window.
Lung
cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men and women
in the United States. It occurs most often between the ages
of 55 and 65. There are two major types of lung cancer --
non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. Each
type of lung cancer grows and spreads in different ways,
and each is treated differently.
Overview
Lung
cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United
States, among both men and women. It claims more lives than
colon, prostate, lymph and breast cancer combined.
Yet
most of these lung cancer deaths could have been prevented.
That's because smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of
lung cancer cases. Although your risk of lung cancer increases
with the length of time and number of cigarettes you smoke,
quitting smoking, even after many years, can significantly
reduce your chances of developing the disease. Protecting
yourself from exposure to other leading causes of lung cancer,
such as asbestos, radon and secondhand smoke, also decreases
your risk.
Prevention
is critical because lung cancer usually isn't discovered
until it's at an advanced stage when the outlook for recovery
is poor. Although the survival rates for lung cancer have
improved, they remain much lower than those of many other
types of cancer.
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The information on this page has been extracted from http://nihseniorhealth.gov/lungcancer/lungcancerdefined/01.html
