LungBlog

Screening for lung cancer with computed tomography (CT) may help reduce lung cancer deaths in current and former smokers, but it won’t protect them from other causes of death associated with smoking, according to a new study published in the July issue of the journal Radiology.”Our study suggests that screening may be one way to reduce risk of death from lung cancer,” said the study’s lead author, Pamela McMahon, Ph.D., senior scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor in radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “However, the number-one goal should still be to quit smoking, because it will reduce risk of death from many causes, including lung cancer.”

The UK National Archives have just released notes of cabinet meetings that took place over 50 years ago, from 1955 to 1956, among which are minutes of a meeting where the British prime minister and cabinet colleagues first reviewed emerging evidence of a statistical link between smoking and lung cancer and made the decision to wait and see rather than mount a public campaign.

Cancer rates are on the rise because of our unhealthy lifestyles, including lack of exercise, excessive drinking, poor diet and smoking.

As many as one in three of us can expect to suffer from a form of cancer at some point in our lives so it’s time to start reducing your risk today…

Among women, the excess mortality risk associated with smoking does diminish down to the same levels as never smokers after quitting, but it can take up to 30 years, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

People who have spent most of their lives smoking may derive health benefits within five years of quitting - drastically reducing their chance of dying from a heart attack, stroke or lung cancer, according to a study published today.

In just five years, quitters reduced their added risk of dying of a heart attack by 47 percent and of lung cancer by 21 percent. Over time, their risk declined to the level of nonsmokers.

Women who stop smoking dramatically reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke by 20 percent within five years, and have a lung cancer risk similar to that of a non-smoker after 30 years, a new study shows.The findings support previous research that removing tobacco from the body is beneficial to health.

The question is: Why do some longtime smokers come down with the deadly disease whereas others escape it? New research points to a genetic culprit that also was fingered as upping a person’s likelihood of becoming hooked on cigarettes.

Two new studies link a variation in a gene residing on chromosome 15 (of a person’s 23 pairs of chromosomes) to a heightened risk of developing lung cancer; a third study suggests that the same mutation  affects a person’s tendency to become addicted to smokes and, by extension, develop the dreaded disease. Lung cancer is diagnosed in some 200,000 Americans and kills more than 150,000 each year.

An International group of researchers found two SNPs linked to an increased risk of lung cancer.The team collected DNA from 1,154 smokers who have lung cancer and 1,137 smokers without lung cancer. Each DNA sample was analyzed for SNPs that differed between the two groups. They then analyzed the top 10 SNPs in an additional 5,075 DNA samples from smokers with and without lung cancer.