BEYOND THE HEADLINES
January 17, 2010
Lung Cancer
Hosted by ABC7's Cheryl Jennings
This week's episode of "Beyond the Headlines" talks about a cancer that kills more women than four different cancers combined. According to the American Cancer Society, LUNG CANCER kills more women than breast cancer, colon cancer, rectal cancer, and liver cancer combined.
We look at how big the problem is for women and for men and show you there is enormous hope in fighting this deadly disease. The American Cancer Society says more and more people who have never smoked are being diagnosed with lung cancer. That includes a world famous opera singer in San Francisco, named Zheng Cao.
Facts and figures from the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation:
- 53% of lung cancer in women is NOT attributed to smoking.
- ¾ of patients that develop lung cancer today have either never smoked or stopped smoking 10 or 20 years ago.
- Lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the #1 killer of women in 1987.
- If everyone in America stopped smoking today, we would still have a lung cancer epidemic for the next 20 years.
- 198,250 women who have never smoked lost their lives in 2009 to lung cancer.
- In 2009, there were 1.5 million overall lung cancer deaths.
- 375,000 of these never smoked.
- 198,250 of these were women non-smokers.
- Comparatively, 40,470 women died of breast cancer.
- Because only 10-20% of smokers develop lung cancer, science is pointing to family history and genetic susceptibility to lung cancer for the other 80-90%.
- If you do smoke, you should quit because smoking leads to heart disease, emphysema, COPD, acute myeloid leukemia, cancers of the throat, stomach, bladder, esophagus, cervix, pancreas, and lung.
Studio Guests:
Bonnie Addario
Founder, Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation
www.lungcancerfoundation.org
Tony Addario
www.lungcancerfoundation.org
Zheng Cao
San Francisco Opera Singer
Thierry Jahan, M.D.
Thoracic Oncologist, UCSF
http://cancer.ucsf.edu
David Larson, M.D. Ph.D.
Specialist of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery and Radiation Oncology, Washington Hospital
www.whhs.com
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