Lung Cancer kills more Americans than any other cancer. The average annual death toll for recent years is almost 70,000 men and over 20,000 women. It represents 22 percent of all cancers in men, 6 percent of all cancers in men, 6 percent of all cancers in women.

And there has been a steady increase in the incidence of lung cancer in both men and women over the past 35 years—especially so in men, among whom the mortality rate has gone up 15 times. In 1965, women accounted for one in eight lung cancer mortalities; the figure now is almost one in four. The current chance of being cured of this disease where there is regional involvement is no greater than 10 percent.

Symptoms

Although some early lung cancers do not show up on an x-ray film, they are the ones that usually produce cough as an early symptom. For this reason, any cough that lasts more than two or three weeks—even if it seems to accompany a cold or bronchitis—should be regarded as suspicious and investigated in that light.

Blood in the sputum is another is another early warning sign that must be investigated immediately; so should wheezing when breathing. Later symptoms include shortness of breath, pain in the chest, fever, and night sweats.

Detection

If many lives could be saved by preventing lung cancer in the first place, others could be saved by early detection. By the time most lung cancers are diagnosed, it is too late even for the most radical approach to cure—removal of the afflicted lung.

Experts estimate that up to five times the present cure rate of 10 percent could be achieved if very early lungs cancers could be spotted. They therefore recommend a routine chest x ray every six months for everyone over 45.

Smoking

Lung cancer is one of the most preventable of all malignancies. Most cases, the majority of medical experts agree, are caused by smoking cigarettes. The US Public Health Service has indicted smoking as “the main cause of lung cancer in men.” Even when other agents are known to produce lung cancers—uranium ore dust or asbestos fibers, for example—cigarette smoking enormously boosts the risk among uranium miners and asbestos workers.

Various theories have been proposed top explain the mechanism by which smoking causes cancer in human beings; none has been proved. But it is known that the lungs of some cigarette smokers show tissue changes before cancer appears, changes apparently caused by irritation of the lining of the bronchi—the large air tubes in the lung.

Physicians believe these changes can be reversed before the onset of cancer if the source of irritation—smoking—is removed. This is why a heavy smoker who has been puffing away for many years but then stops smoking has a better chance of avoiding lung cancer than one who continues smoking.