WOMEN AND LUNG CANCER

As women,  we are often led to believe that breast cancer is our greatest cancer risk.  In fact, lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in females, surpassing breast, cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer.    Females develop lung cancer at an earlier age and often die younger  than their male counterparts.  Smoking is the main culprit and is responsible for 80% of cancer deaths in women.  A woman who smokes the same number of cigarettes as a man is twice as likely to develop lung cancer.  Smoking rates among women have now surpassed that of men.  Twenty-three million women (23% of the U.S. population) continue to smoke cigarettes despite efforts to promote smoking cessation, and educate men and women on the diseases directly caused by cigarette smoke.  Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in this country, yet greater than 140,000 women die each year secondary to smoking related causes, more than 60,000 of which are due to lung cancer.

Lung cancer has always been perceived as an illness of the middle-aged or elderly, but doctors throughout the country are seeing increasing numbers of women in their thirties or early forties dying from the disease.  The type of lung cancer killing women in this age group is slightly different than that which commonly targets older men.  Men with lung cancer tend to have not only a history of smoking, but also have a history of bronchitis, and their cancer comes to light secondary to repeated pulmonary infections.  Lung cancer in younger women tends to be more advanced at the time of initial diagnosis.  Many believe that this is due to the type of cigarettes women are smoking.  Women tend to smoke low-tar cigarettes, therefore inhaling smaller particles  which can travel further in the lungs, causing damage at a deeper level.  Another key to tumor risk, as reported by a study from Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, lies in men having a greater ability to detoxify toxins present in cigarette smoke. The presence of the female hormone estrogen  is also a known factor in promoting cancer development in women.

Lung cancer survival rates are extremely low.  Only 6.4% of women survive five years with lung cancer compared to 77.5% of women with breast cancer.  Therefore, continue to encourage family and friends to stop smoking, and support them in their endeavors.