Believe it or not, most women in the US consider breast cancer a bigger danger than lung cancer. At least, that’s what the American Lung Association (ALA) discovered when they surveyed more than 1,000 US women. However, the real truth is that lung cancer claims more American lives every year – both women and men alike – than any other form of cancer. Lung Cancer is more dangerous than breast cancer, even though the latter is the most prevalent.
Unspecified Carcinoma of the Lung
This comes at a time when there is a more heightened awareness about cancer in general. According to the survey, most American woman are not aware that lung cancer is a risk even to nonsmokers. Even worse, fewer are aware that mortality rates are high for the disease.
Alana Burns, vice president of the ALA’s Signature Cause Campaign, seems to think awareness is lower for lung cancer because there are so few survivors speaking out on the issue.
“With breast cancer, there are so many survivors out there telling their stories and advocating,” Burns said. “But more than half of women diagnosed with lung cancer are gone within a year. There is no legion of survivors talking about their experiences.”
It is definitely true that more American women are affected by breast cancer. However, lung cancer claims more lives and that’s the point. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about 38 out of every 100,000 US women die each year because of it. In comparison, the mortality rate for breast cancer is 22 for every 100,000 women.
Even scarier is the fact that nearly 10 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked a day in their lives. Where does it come from then? Big surprise, the top cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers is exposure to radon gas. It can seep into homes after being released from soil with natural uranium deposits as it undergoes radioactive decay. The deadly radon gas collects inside a residence and over a long period of time can become extremely dangerous to inhabitants. Worse yet, it is odorless, tasteless and invisible. The only way to detect the presence of radon is to perform an air sample test.
Of course, there are other factors that can cause lung cancer including exposure to secondhand smoke, pollution, asbestos and more.
According to the American Lung Association, less than half of women with the disease live for longer than a year after being diagnosed. That’s just another way to say the disease has a remarkably high mortality rate – which is exactly what we’ve discussed above.
That is why we need to get the word out there. Once you finish reading this, share it with family, friends and everyone you can. Lung Cancer is a very dangerous disease and it claims more lives every year. A lot of it can easily be prevented through a simple radon test, but before it can be prevented people need to be aware of the problem.
Just some food for thought, Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.
Via: The Health Cast
