Lung Cancer It’s History Background

Published on May 12 2010, in the categories: Causes, lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death for women and men in USA and it kills over 1 million people a year worldwide. Its history faithfully accompanies that of the spread and developments of cigarettes.

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In the early 1900s, lung cancer was virtually non-existent. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that it became a crude reality that a real epidemic of lung cancer had begun to spread around the world. Not coincidentally, the smoking industry had reached new peaks of development after the First World War.
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Though cigarette producers had constantly denied the link between smoking and lung cancer, in 1950 the connection was irrevocably established. Even so, cigarette companies would still claim their product is not the least addictive and that is does nothing to harm the lungs and the tobacco industry has since then remained one of the most profitable industries out there.
The situation has actually worsened since then.
The annual incidence and mortality rate of lung cancer has increased more than that of any other form of cancer and it is getting worse with every passing year. While as far as 60 years ago, around 19 000 people in the US were dying of lung cancer every year, in recent years The American Cancer Society has come up with figures of diagnosed patients going up to 172,000 new case per year, which is more than 13% of all patients with cancer of all types. Less than 15% of those cases are expected to survive.
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Before 1900 a total of only 100 cases of lung cancer had been documented and a review of 100 years of autopsies in Dresden, Germany conducted by Grosse, has revealed that the incidence of lung cancer had increased from 0,3% to 5,6% from 1852 to 1952, a development undoubtedly linked to the spread of tobacco. As early as 1970 lung cancer became the deadliest cancer in the Western world.
It all started after the war when companies had even passed out free cigarettes to soldiers. Then, only in the 1930s did doctors see the consequence, namely the lung cancer epidemics. Media and advertising are main purpotraiters in the popularity of cigarettes. When women failed to keep up with the men smoking advertising portrayed the modern woman as one smoking and soon enough, in 1985, cancer became the primary form of cancer making victims among women.
Treatments and test are however also advancing so we can see an improvement in the prevention and treatment of lung cancer as well as in the incidence of people quitting smoking.
The first successful pneumonectomy was performed in 1933 and Palliative radiotherapy has been used since the 1940s. In 1970 successful chemotherapy has been introduced and raised the chances for survival. However, the true success is in prevention.

Causes Of Lung Cancer

Published on May 08 2010, in the categories: Causes, Diagnosing lung cancer, lung cancer

Cancer can be for surely named the disease of the last century ; there is a multitude of types of cancers which can affect different parts of the body, which can be found under different forms and the majority of the types of cancer are usually deadly to the people who develop them and the causes of the cancer can be very various : some of them could be prevented and some of them can not . But one of the most curious things is the fact that lung cancer which is the main type of cancer which kills over 1 million people every year is also the type of cancer which could have been prevented but it is not .

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The main causes of lung cancer can be summarized in the following : asbestos , viruses , particulate matter but also radon gas and smoking . What is the most curious things is that all the first causes are responsible for a little amount of the total cases of lung cancer which are diagnosed each year by the doctors and over 90 per cent of the total cases are usually the ones which are caused by smoking . And the statistics even point out some numbers which show that the smokers have a larger chance to develop lung cancer : men who smoke develop risks of 17.2% of getting lung cancer affection and women a risk of 11.6% and for non-smokers for men the risk of lung cancer is of 1.3% and for women is of 1.4% .
The causes of lung cancer can be totally summarized to smoking or better said the substances which are contained by the tobacco and all the substances like nicotine which are included in the tobacco of the cigarettes . But is important to underline that not only the people who smoke who are named the smokers develop the risks of getting lung cancer but also the people who are non smokers but who stay around the people who smoke or in areas where there is a large amount of cigarettes’ smoke and they inhale it are also very exposed to the risks of getting lung cancer .
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So if people only analyze the numbers which are given by the statistics they would notice that the high rates of mortality and the large number of people which are diagnosed every year with lung cancer affection could be much more smaller because it is clear the smoking is a voluntary action that people can decide to make or they can decide not to make it ; if less people smoke, than is clear that the risks of developing lung cancer are much more smaller and in this way the people would not develop lung cancer and they will not suffer of lung cancer affection .
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In this way the large number of people who die each year because of lung cancer affection will be much smaller and the survival rates will grow .

Small Cell Cancer Of Lung And Liver

Published on Apr 26 2010, in the categories: Causes

Lung cancer is one of the most serious forms of cancer and that has a very high mortality rate because it is very hard to be detected in the patients who develop the cancer and also because the treatment can be efficient only when it is applied in early stages and this things is not very frequently available . There are two types of lung cancer the non small cells lung cancer which is more frequent than the small cells lung cancer .Although the first type occurs more frequent, the second types has some particularities that make it a little more different than the other type . So the small cells lung cancer types occurs in circa 20 or 25 per cent of the total cases of lung cancer but it grows more rapidly than the other type and also it spreads more rapidly than the other one . But it can also be said that it is a type of cancer that treated with chemo therapy or radiation therapy gives good results but also can be associated with many symptoms which are called paraneoplastic syndromes which are produced by the tumors . The causes of this type of cancer are also similar with the non small cell types so the majority of cases of cancer are caused by smoking and it is important to mention that it is even more influenced than the non small lung cancer by smoking .

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Also other frequent causes of this type of lung cancer are the people who are very exposed to uranium but this risk is higher if it is also associated with smoking . Other causes can be the radon gas and the exposure to asbestos that is a pretty high risk but also the combination of these causes with smoking gives a risk of circa 50 times higher than in person who are not exposed to lung cancer causes .
A thing that happens in small cells type of cancer is the fact that patients who start to experience symptoms and signs of the cancer with circa 8 to 12 weeks before the have to go to the doctor.
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The symptoms consist of cough, coughing up blood, shortness of breath and chest pain and this are usually caused by the growth of the lung tumors or by the cancer spreading to other areas of the body. There can also be difficulties in swallowing, swelling of the face and hands, hoarseness of voice and in this time the cancer can be spread to brain and cause headaches, problems with vision, vomiting, spreading to the back bone and this is linked with back pains which are very hard to bear, spreading to the spinal cord that can even lead to paralysis and can cause pains of the entire bone system.
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It can spread to the liver and there will appear pains in the upper part of the stomach and there can be experienced paraneoplastic symptoms so it can also appear a fatigue type of feeling, the loss of weight, appetite and also affect other organs .

Who Usually Gets Lung Cancer

Published on Apr 19 2010, in the categories: Causes

Cancer and especially lung cancer, is one of the most terrible disease of our century but unfortunately is also one of the most common affection of our generations and it affects millions of people each year .
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I said cancer but especially lung cancer because according to the statistics lung cancer has been responsible for more deaths and even new cases of disease discovered than all the other types of lung cancer together and the numbers that have been made public are worrying because over 1 million people die each year because of lung cancer affection and over 1,3 million people are diagnosed with lung cancer per year .

And the prognosis for the numbers for the next couple of years are not very optimistic mainly due to the causes that seem they can not be handled and controlled in order to maintain a control on the number of patients who suffer of this affection . But speaking about patients who are they, what they have different from the rest of the people, how come they are more affected by the causes which determine the apparition of lung cancer and in fact who usually gets lung cancer .

The first answer that comes into your mind and which is of course the normal and obvious one is the people who are exposed to the causes of lung cancer , and especially to the causes which determine the highest number of cases of illness .
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And although there can be some minor causes linked with radon gas or some types of micro organisms that can be found sometimes in atmosphere they are not the main cause and the one that is responsible for about 90 per cent of the total cases of lung cancer is an activity sometimes named a hobby, a necessity, something that is voluntary and it depends on you willing is smoking . Yes, smoking is the main cause for almost all the cases of lung cancer that are discovered and diagnosed and it goes even more than this .

Not only the smokers, people who usually smoke are the most exposed persons to the risks of developing lung cancer but also the passive smokers the people who do not actually smoke but who stay around and pretty much close to the people who smoke and in this way they intake a very large amount of the cigarettes’ smoke and doctors say that the amount that the passive smokers intake can be larger than the one actually inhaled by the smokers .

This thing can be stopped only with willing of quitting up smoking and in the first place to admit that smoking is a risk and it can actually provide you with lung cancer . But people who usually get lung cancer and are the most exposed are usually the one who prefer to ignore the warnings , to close their eyes and their ears and to pretend that the risk of smoking does not even exist .

How Does Smoking Cause Lung Cancer

Published on Apr 13 2010, in the categories: Causes

Lung cancer kills over more than 1 million people each year and over 1,3 million get diagnosed with lung cancer per year and over 90 per cent of both the people who are killed by the cancer and who are diagnosed with it are caused by smoking . Although the doctors and specialists warn about the risks that smoking exposes us to many people do not know how does smoking cause lung cancer .
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If a person starts to smoke or a person that stays around a person that smoke is a passive smoker, so in both cases the certain person will intake a great amount of cigarette’s smoke . The tobacco contained in the cigarettes contains many bad substances like nicotine .

The worst part of the cigarettes are the fact that the substances contained in the tobacco when they are intake by the people and get to the lungs they do not leave for completely the lung cavity so there remain some leftovers of them . That leftovers in time they accumulate so they start to cause the apparition of the lung tumors . So that is why there is a strong and tight connection between the cigarettes and the apparition and development of lung cancer and other important factor is also the period of time in which the people have smoked .
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The best way to understand how does smoking cause lung cancer is to pay attention to all the clinical factors that have been exposed in the last periods of time, to all the campaigns that have promoting the idea of quitting up smoking, to take a look at the shocking photos with lung cancer patients, with organs and many other internal parts of the body how are they affected and how they look after cancer is installed in their cells .

It has to be clear that all those facts are not stories and there are solid proves that show the fact that the majority of cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking and by understanding this and not ignoring the signs there could be a much more higher survival rates . The first mean of preventing lung cancer is not so start smoking , not to stay around the people who smoke so you have to take care not to intake large amounts of the smoke of other people who smoke, and for smokers is important to realize that they have to quit smoking . If a person quits at smoking, there are high chances of being exposed to a much more smaller risk of apparition of lung cancer .

If they stop to intake the smoke, they can start to be gradually healed because in time the harm that has been caused to the lungs of the persons can start to be removed and gradually there can be very little damage left to the lungs . So it is important not to have to intake smoke in your body in order to protect yourself of lung cancer .

Lung Cancer Photo

Published on Apr 09 2010, in the categories: Causes

In the last few years, there have been developed many health problems and the main disease that has been causing enormous damages to the human body has been the cancer under all its forms and types has been causing many deaths all over the world .
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Although not many people have paid attention to it till recently, in the last couple of years lung cancer has been responsible of causing over 1 million deaths annually and also over 1 million people have been detected with new cases of lung cancer ; these numbers have started to concern a worldwide community and that it has begun the research and finding all the means of treatments for curing it or for at least relief the patients’ quality of life and last years or months of life and also the means for preventing it have become necessary but also the studying of causes has become a great interest for specialists all over the world .
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It has been proven that lung cancers have different causes like radon gas but none of them can be responsible of more than 10 per cent of the total cases of lung cancer but it has been shown that the main cause and which is responsible of more than 90 per cent of the total cases of lung cancer cases is smoking and what is even more curious is the fact that smoking is a voluntary activity that people choose to do it or choose not to do it .

Smoking is one of the most dangerous substances for our lungs because the tobacco which has a high content of cancerous substances which can launched the apparition of the tumor lungs and then they will start to grow and to develop till they can affect all the functions of the lungs and they own the lung cavity .
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The number of deaths and new cases of lung cancers are strongly connected with the numbers of cigarettes that people smoke and the period of time in which they were smoking and this connection is due to the quantity of smoke that people intake . The worst part is that also the people who intake a great amount of smoke meaning the people who do not smoke but who stay near the ones who do smoke become passive smokers and they also develop a risk for developing lung cancer

There has been carried out huge campaigns that promote anti smoking in order to convince more people not to smoke and to reduce the number of cases of lung cancer and the campaigns showed many lung cancer photos in order to shock the people .

They even added lung cancer photos on the packages of cigarettes to be sure that the photos get to the destined people who have to pay attention to them and to start to believe that smoking really can cause lung cancer and that means the they themselves reduce their survival rates by not quitting at smoking .

Lung Cancer Caused By Smoking

Published on Apr 02 2010, in the categories: Causes

Lung cancers has been in the last few years a very severe illness because it has been responsible of many deaths and the number of patients that have been killed by the lung cancer affection has been higher than the number of patients that have been killed by all the other types of lung cancers .
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Every year circa 1,1 millions people die each year killed by this terrible disease and more than 1,3 millions people are diagnosed with new cases of lung cancers all over the world each year in the last few years . The high number of deaths can be linked with many factors related to the affection but also with the causes that are responsible for developing this kind of disease .

First of all is important to know that more than over 90 per cent of the total cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking and other causes do not count too much because they do not cause many types and cases of lung cancers . Lung cancer caused by smoking is in fact the only type of cancer that is developed because there is tight connection between smoking and smoker on one hand and on the other hand the development and growth of the lung tumors .
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Many smokers have a higher risk and chance to develop this kind of disease than the other people who do not smoke but doctors say that we must be careful because people who stay around the people who do smoke can become passive smokers and they can also develop the same risks as the smokers to develop lung cancer because they also intake much of the cigarettes’ smoke .

The tight connection between cigarettes and lung cancer are the substances that are contained by this type of cigarettes ; the substances contained in nicotine and other substances that compose the tobacco are called carcinogens because they are the responsible of the growth of the tumors in the lungs cavity . Lung cancer caused by smoking is in fact the non small cells lung cancer or the small cells lung cancer but the second type is more frequent and it is also more easily developed by people .
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The stages of this type of cancer are scaled from stage one to stage four meaning that in stage one cancer is just showing up and is being local and the tumors just grow and stage four is the terminal or final stage of lung cancer when the lungs are very damaged but also lung cancer has spread to the lymph nodes from the body but also in other parts and organs of the body and this causes many other types of affection that will affect the patient’s organs and vital functions . The stages two and three are thought to be the advanced stages when cancer stops to being local but it does start to spread to other parts and areas of the body and causes many complications .

Cause And Effect Of Lung Cancer

Published on Mar 16 2010, in the categories: Causes, Facts, Smoking effects, Stages of disease, Useful Info

Lung cancer can have many causes but one of them is responsible for the majority cases diagnosed with this disease . Smoking is one of the most common cause of lung cancer . Statistics points out that smokers have a 50% or even 100% greater chance to have lung cancer than the non-smokers . 90% of the lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking and what is more important is that not only smokers are affected but also passive smokers , people who inhalate the smoke, can develop this disease .

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For example , men who smoke develop a lifetime risk of 17.2% and women a risk of 11.6% and for non-smokers men have a lifetime risk of lung cancer of 1.3% and women of 1.4% . Even if statistic points out this numbers , the number of smokers does not come down . There is a tight connection between the number of cigarettes smoked per day by a person and the risk of getting lung cancer and also another major factor represents the period of time that a person has been smoking .

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Lung cancer may have other causes such as : radon gas , asbestos , viruses , particulate matter but none of this has registered so many infected person with lung cancer such as smoking . It is a very rough disease because 85% of the discovered cased die within the first 5 years . This number is so big because lung cancer is really hard to detect in early stages . Most of the patients are diagnosed with advanced levels of cancer .

The patients present besides , the lung cancer symptoms which has to do with the effects of the tumors , other effects which are linked with the metastatic tumors in other parts of their bodies . Sometimes you can have fluid in the lungs and this has another effect on body because cancer can spread to other parts of the body and cells which are normal can become infected with carcinogens.

There can be : disturbances of hormones , blood or other systems can be harmed and apart from these can appear effects due to the treatment applied , or to the type of cancer or whether the lung cancer is metastatic or not . Following these effects , the long term effects will start to appear . This means that new health problems will develop such as : liver , brains and bone cancer .

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Another serious complication can be heart . Because of the lack of oxygen , the level of oxygen in blood drop and are very low which leads to shortness of breath again , then there is the risk of a great enlargement of the right side of the heart and it can lead to a possible heart failure which is called by doctors as pulmonary hypertension. It is easy to see that even if causes are not so many , the effects of lung cancer on patient’s body are multiple and they also can cause another kind of affections that can be as deadly as the lung cancer and that reduces the survival rate even more .

What Is The Cause Of Lung Cancer

Published on Mar 09 2010, in the categories: Causes

When we refer to lung cancer we can not talk about a single cause that determines the disease. There are many known causes for lung cancer. Smoking is the first one. About 90% of lung cancers arise as a result of tobacco use. The risk of lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked every day and the time over which smoking has occurred.

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Doctors refer to this risk regarding the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years smoked. Those who have smoked for many years are considered to have the greatest risk for the development of lung cancer. Statistics show that among those who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes per day, one in seven will die of lung cancer. Cigarettes are harmful because tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds, many of which have been shown to be cancer-causing or carcinogenic. That is way not only those who smoke are affected with lung cancer. Passive smoking, the inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers, can be a risk factor for the development of lung cancer. Research has shown that nonsmokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with nonsmokers who do not reside with a smoker.

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Besides smoking, there are other factors that can contribute to the development of lung cancer. Air pollution from industry or vehicles can raise the degree of developing lung cancer. Nowadays 1% of lung cancer deaths are attributable to breathing polluted air. The exposure to highly polluted air can carry a risk for the development of lung cancer similar to that of passive smoking.

Evan if the majority of lung cancers are associated with tobacco smoking, not all smokers develop lung cancer. Other factors, such as individual genetic susceptibility, may play a role in the causation of lung cancer. Numerous studies have shown that lung cancer is more likely to occur in both smoking and non-smoking relatives of those who have had lung cancer than in the general population. So, the individual medical history can also be a cause of lung cancer. The presence of certain diseases of the lung is associated with an increased risk for the development of lung cancer. Also, survivors of lung cancer have a greater risk of developing a second lung cancer than the general population has of developing a first lung cancer.

The exposure at radon gas or asbestos fibers, at a workplace, can also increase the possibilities of developing lung cancer. Radon gas is a natural, chemically inert gas that is a natural decay product of uranium and it is a cause of lung cancer. As with asbestos exposure, concomitant smoking greatly increases the risk of lung cancer with radon exposure.

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Regarding all these facts, we can see that there isn’t a single cause for lung cancer. There are a number of factors that contribute to the development of this disease.

Why Smoking Causes Lung Cancer

Published on Mar 08 2010, in the categories: Causes, Facts, Symptoms, Useful Info

Smoking is one of the most common cause of lung cancer . Statistics points out that smokers have a 50% or even 100% greater chance to have lung cancer than the non-smokers . 90% of the lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking and what is more important is that not only smokers are affected but also passive smokers , people who inhale the smoke, can develop this disease .
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For example , men who smoke develop a lifetime risk of 17.2% and women a risk of 11.6% and for non-smokers men have a lifetime risk of lung cancer of 1.3% and women of 1.4% . Even if statistic points out this numbers , the number of smokers does not come down .

Everyone knows this but no one can actually tell why smoking causes lung cancer . It has been proved that the substances within tobacco are responsible for causing cancer ; they are even named carcinogens or " cancer-causing-cancer "and cigarettes contain over 60 of this kind substances .

In this category of substances are included : benzo(a)pyrene and nitrosamine . Once they have reached the lungs , they settled down there for years and they start to cause DNA damage , oxidative stress and inflammation and that is only the beginning of the tumors . The body is unable to repair the DNA damage and the cells divide and multiply and they end up into a malignant tumor.

It is also important the rate of smoking , how many cigarettes per day does a person smokes ,the time he has been smoking. It is obvious that the chances are greater if a person smokes too many cigarettes per day or if he smokes for a long period of time. If a smoker quits smoking, the chances begin to decrease because the damage to the lungs starts to be removed gradually.

Lung cancer is not easy to detect in early stage and because of that it is in the majority of cases fatal. The hope of life is 5 years and the survival rate is only about 15% , especially because it often metastasizes and affects other organs of the body.

Lately, greater efforts have been made to develop new methods to detect lung cancer in earlier stages and doctors from all over the world are trying to find new treatments for this pitiless disease . But because these things have not been discovered yet , the best measures that we can take are the ones concerning premonition .

People should think twice before they start smoking , before they agree to become passive-smokers and the people who already are smokers should think to reduce the numbers of cigarettes they smoke per day till they can manage to quit once and for all smoking. Smokers must think at their health and not only theirs but also, they should realize that smoking affects the people around them and they convert into passive-smokers.