A smoker most of her life, she knew down deep, she says, that she was at real risk of one day developing the disease. I always wondered whether smoking would come back to haunt me. And it did, adds Jensen. Now, I try to encourage as many people as possible to quit. Looking back, it s just not worth it.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women.
More than 164,100 new cases will be diagnosed this year, according to the American Cancer Society, and about 156,900 people will die from it. In fact, more women now die each year from lung cancer than from breast cancer an unfortunately little-known fact, doctors say. And the longer a person smokes, the greater the risk. This risk carries over to nonsmokers who regularly breathe in second-hand smoke, as well. Since most people with early lung cancer do not have any symptoms, only about 15 percent of lung cancers are found in the early stages although new testing procedures are showing great success at finding lung cancer in its earliest stages.