I don't smoke. Lung cancer?One in three patients is a non-smoker
Dec 20, 2024
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Smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer, but non-smokers who do not smoke at all are also increasingly suffering from lung cancer, so caution should be taken.
According to the information on lung cancer, which is a non-smoker, recently published by the Korean Lung Cancer Society, non-smoker lung cancer corresponds to those who have never smoked or smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, and the proportion of non-smokers among lung cancer patients is about 30-40%.
According to statistics from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the number of lung cancer patients increased by about 27% from 103,371 in 2019 to 127,950 in 2023. The number of male patients increased by about 22% from 63,110 to 77,093 in 2019, but the number of female patients increased by about 36% from 37,261 to 55,857 during the same period, increasing the proportion of female patients.
"Lung cancer often has no symptoms in the early stages, but it is often overlooked because it is mainly coughing or sputum," said H Plus Yangji Hospital, a specialist in the Democratic Institute of Respiratory Medicine. "The proportion of female patients is increasing recently, and the increase in female smokers is also the cause, but the influence of the surrounding environment such as fine dust and cooking fumes is also cited as the cause."
Lung is an essential organ responsible for absorbing oxygen, emitting carbon dioxide, and breathing. Malignant tumors in the lungs interfere with breathing, and can spread throughout the body such as liver, bones, kidney, brain, adrenal gland, and spinal cord through blood as well as the other lungs as cancer progresses.
Lung cancer is known to have the highest mortality rate among teenage cancers, and according to data from the National Cancer Information Center, 85,271 patients (52,182 men and 33,089 women) died of cancer in 2023, of which 13,698 men died of lung cancer, accounting for 26.3% of all cancer deaths, and 4,948 (15%) women died.
Smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer, and smokers are known to be 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. However, the number of lung cancer patients who do not smoke is increasing, and secondhand smoking is the main reason. When smoking cigarettes directly, bad ingredients are filtered and inhaled through filters, but non-smokers are easily exposed to carcinogens as they are sucked into the body without filtering. In addition, air pollution represented by fine dust and ultrafine dust, harmful substances such as cooking fumes, radon, and asbestos, and stress and family history are also considered causes of lung cancer.
Since there is no nerve in the lungs, even if cancer occurs, there are no symptoms, so if symptoms develop, it can be difficult to treat as the lung cancer has already progressed to some extent. The most common symptoms are weight loss, cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, and hemoptysis, but in non-smokers, it is often overlooked.
Lung cancer is considered a dangerous cancer with a low survival rate, but if it is detected early and surgical treatment is performed, it can be cured. The 5-year relative survival rate after lung cancer diagnosis is 30%, and the end of stage 4 or higher is 8.9%, showing a large difference. In fact, it is known that 5-15% of patients are diagnosed early. If it is difficult to detect due to subjective symptoms, the best way is to detect early through examination.
Currently, the country recommends low-dose chest CT every year for high-risk groups who have smoked more than one pack of cigarettes every day for more than 30 years in the age of 55. Even if you have a family history or underlying diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or pulmonary fibrillation, even if you are not in the high-risk group, it is recommended to have a regular lung examination.
Above all, if you are a smoker, you need to quit smoking. If you quit smoking, the risk of lung cancer starts to decrease from about the fifth year, and after 10 years, the probability of dying from lung cancer is halved, and if you quit smoking for about 15 years, it can be reduced to 1.5 to 2 times that of non-smokers.
According to a specialist at the Democratic Institute of Science and Technology "As studies show that high-risk groups for lung cancer have a reduced mortality rate from lung cancer every year, it is necessary to get tested if your lungs are not good."It is good to keep a balanced diet including fruits and vegetables and aerobic exercise that can strengthen muscle strength, and it is also helpful to wear a mask on fine dust days or when cooking food with a lot of cooking breaks." he said.
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