Approximately 3,780 people are diagnosed with lung cancer and 2,850 die from the disease each year.
Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, and exposure to secondhand smoke causes lung cancer for non-smoking adults. The best way to decrease tobacco usage is to make it easy to quit smoking, prevent kids from smoking, and to create smoke-free places. For more information visit www tobacco free.org.
RISK FACTORS: A risk factor is anything that affects a person’s chance such as cancer. Some risk factors like smoking can be changed. Others, like a person’s age or family history, cannot be changed.
SMOKING: Cigarette smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer, quitting at any age can significantly lower your risk of developing lung cancer.
FAMILY HISTORY: Your risk for lung cancer may be higher if your parents, brothers or sisters, or children have had lung cancer.
SECONDHAND SMOKE: Smoke from other people’s cigarettes, pipes or cigars also causes cancer.
AGE: As you get older, your risk of developing cancer increases. The average age in the United States for a lung cancer diagnosis is around 70 years of age.
AIR POLLUTION: Outdoor air pollution may increase the risk of developing lung cancer. This risk is far less than the risk caused by smoking but some researchers estimate that about 5 percent of all deaths from lung cancer may be due to outside pollution.
EXPOSURE TO ASBESTOS: People who work with asbestos (such as mines, mills, textile plants, shipyards) are several times more likely to die of lung cancer risk.
Source: Adapted from American Cancer Society