Lung Cancer

A 66 year old female presented to my office with a chronic cough and right sided chest pain. She denied any fevers, chills, or weight loss. Her medical and family history were unremarkable but she did admit to smoking one to two packs a day for decades. Labs and ECG were normal but her chest xray demonstrated a "mass." CT of the chest was done the next day which confirmed a 5 cm lesion. Bronchoscopy was performed and she was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma (lung cancer).

Lung Cancer is bad. Tobacco is directly linked to about 80-90% of all lung cancers!!! I counsel patients daily on tobacco use and cessation but unfortunately people continue to smoke. The statistics are staggering:

1. Adults in the US who smoke: over 40 million
2. High School students who smoke: 3.5 million
3. Packs of cigarettes used by kids each year: 800 million/$2 billion in sales revenue
4. Kids who become new regular smokers each day: 1000
5. Health care costs caused by smoking: $80 billion and rising
6. Smokers lose an average of 13 years to their lives
7. Smoking during pregnancy causes more than 1000 infant deaths per year
8. Consumer cost of cigarette smoking per year: $3400
9. 3000 Americans die each year due to second hand smoke
10. Smoking kills over 400,000 people each year in the US
11. Smoking causes one in five American deaths
12. Someone dies from smoking every 72 seconds
13. 3000 young people begin smoking every day
14. Children of smoking parents have a higher risk of developing asthma, bronchitis, ear infections, etc...
15. 90% of smokers began before the age of 20.

As you can see, tobacco is deadly. Here are some statistics on lung cancer:

1. There have been over 200,000 new cases of lung cancer this year
2. Over 150,000 Americans have died from lung cancer in 2009
3. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death
4. The overall 5 year survival rate for lung cancer is about 15%
5. The number of lung cancer deaths exceeds the total of breast, colon, and prostate combined!!!
6. About 400,000 people alive today have been diagnosed with lung cancer at some point in their lifetime.

What are the strategies for tobacco cessation???

1. You need to want it!!!
2. Set a quit date (anniversary, birthday, New Years)
3. Counselling/Behavioral support (Delaware Quitline 1-866-409-1858 or National Quitline 1-800-QUIT-NOW)
4. Reward yourself when you quit
5. Be prepared for relapse and keep trying
6. Nicotine replacement such as gum, patches, spray, lozenges
7. Medications such as bupropion, nortriptyline, or Chantix
8. One puff can cause a relapse so do not be exposed to a potential smoking environment
9. Quitting smoking does not increase anxiety!!!
10. For smokers with asthma, quitting smoking can improve lung function scores by 15 percent in less than two months
11. Combined therapy is best...About 35% are successful.

For more information, click on the following links

Quit Now
Delaware Quitline
American Lung Association