Information about lung cancer can easily be found on the Internet. It can be beneficial and it can also be incorrect or deceiving. Web resources should be viewed very carefully and analyzed with your medical care team.
Misconceptions about the causes and therapy of lung cancer are plentiful. Some of these are of educational interest only, but others may prevent individuals from seeking medicine — such as a woman who told me she did not want potentially healing lung cancer surgery therapy because her growth would come in contact with air and propagate.
Misconception #1: Only Cigarette/Tobacco Users Get Lung Cancer
The greater parts of individuals who develop lung cancer are tobacco users or ex-smokers, but there is a little percent of individuals who get lung cancer who are long-term non-smokers. There are also other causes of lung cancer such as radiation, mesothelioma, second-hand smoking, radon, and air contamination, etc.
Misconception #2: More Females Die From Breasts Cancer Than From Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is an equal opportunity illness. Nearly half of lung cancer cases happen in ladies, and more women die from lung cancer than any other way of cancer. In 2005 (the most recent season where research are available), 69,078 women passed away from lung cancer, whereas 41,116 passed away from breast cancer.
Misconception #3: Nothing I Do Will Reduced My Chance Of Lung Cancer
Certainly preventing cigarette smoking can decrease your danger of developing lung cancer, but an attention of other factors that may lower or increase your danger is beneficial as well. Some ecological exposures such as radon can increase your danger, and work-related exposures account for 13% to 29% of lung cancer in men. On the good side, diet plans and exercise appear to reduce danger.
Misconception #4: Lung Cancer Rates Are Decreasing Now That Fewer People Smoke
This can be true or incorrect based on your sex. From 1991 to 2005, lung cancer rates reduced 1.8% per season among men, but increased 0.5% per season among women.
Misconception #5: Living In A Contaminated City Is A Greater Risk Than Smoking
Being revealed to diesel fuel fatigue and air contamination does increase the danger of lung cancer; however, the danger is little in comparison to cigarette smoking.
Misconception #6: If I Already Have Lung Cancer, I Don’t Need To Stop Smoking
There are several reasons to stop cigarette smoking when you are clinically identified as having lung cancer. Giving up can help your body better deal with the therapy you are about to go through. Giving up can improve the success amount of surgery therapy and make other therapies like radiation treatment or radiation more effective. Giving up also decreases your danger of passing away from causes other than lung cancer like heart stroke, cardiovascular illness, or other cancer. There are also some immediate wellness advantages of giving up cigarette smoking, such as improved movement and lowering your hypertension level. Giving up cigarette smoking can also reduce your danger for other wellness issues and the like during therapy.
Misconception #7: I Am Too Young To Have Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is more typical in senior citizens, but can happen in adolescents and even children. One way of lung cancer, bronchioloalveolar cancer (BAC), seems to be increasing especially among younger non-smoking women.
Misconception #8: I Am Too Old For My Lung Cancer To Be Treated
Chronological age alone should not determine whether or not a lung cancer is handled. This indicates that younger generation are often able to accept radiation treatment as well as their younger alternatives, and have a similar total well-being following surgery therapy. Performance position (a measure of how well a person is able to carry on common daily activities) is a better signal of how well someone will accept various therapies.
Misconception #9: Exposure To Air During Surgery Causes Lung Cancer To Spread
It is a typical perception that if a lung cancer is revealed to air, it will propagate. Surgery does not cause lung cancer to propagate, and in the beginning of lung cancer, it can offer a good chance to treat the illness. In the past, tests were less able to identify very little cancers that had already propagated. Scans have improved significantly, allowing better recognition of little areas of propagates and better determining sufferers who might or might not benefit from surgery therapy.
Misconception #10: Lung Cancer Is A Death Sentence
Certainly the amount of success for lung cancer overall is not what we would hope. Everyone is clinically identified as having the illness at a stage beyond which a treat is possible. But even if a lung cancer is not treatable, it is still treatable. And therapy can often not only increase life, but help reduce some of the warning signs of cancer as well.
Misconception #11: I Feel Fine, So I Cannot Have Lung Cancer
Often, warning signs do not appear until lung cancer is more advanced. You sense fine and still have lung cancer.