Smoking, he says, is the cause of 87 percent of all lung cancer.
Lung cancer comprises the overwhelming majority of cases handled by thoracic surgeons .
The majority of people who get lung cancer smoke or have smoked. A smoker has a higher risk of getting cancer no matter how much they smoke. You hear stories about people who smoked and lived to be 100. According to the American Cancer Society, the incidence of lung cancer in the United States has been increasing for several decades, in 1990 reaching 87 cases per 100,000 for men and 41 cases per 100,000 for women. Last year an estimated 153,000 Americans died from lung cancer.