Wellness

Lung cancer: the latest key statistics in the U.S.

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer not just in men, after prostate cancer, but also in women, after breast cancer.

2 min read
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer not just in men, after prostate cancer, but also in women, after breast cancer. For the current year, the American Cancer Society estimates approximately 228,820 new cases of lung cancer (50.8% men), with 135,720 deaths (53.7% men) in the United States. Unfortunately, among the various forms of cancer, the one that affects the lung cancer is by far the main one for lethality: it represents 25% of cancer deaths, between men and women. Suffice it to say that, every year, the people who die because of it exceed the sum of those who die from colon, breast and prostate cancer combined. On a positive note, lung cancer mainly occurs in older people, 65 or older. It is rarely diagnosed in people under the age of 45; the average age of the diagnosed population is about 70 years. Not only that, the number of new cases (but also of deaths from lung cancer) is continuously decreasing, thanks to the cessation of smoking, the progress made thanks to early diagnosis and the improvement of treatments.
 

What’s the real chance of getting it?

As for the probability of contracting lung cancer, considering both smokers and non-smokers, the possibility of developing it in the course of life is about 1 in 15 for men; slightly less for women (1 in 17). It has been found that black men are about 15% more likely to develop lung cancer than whites; in contrast, black women are 14% less likely than white women. If over the last few decades the incidence rate of lung cancer has decreased significantly, it must be said that this trend is mainly noticeable in men: this explains the reason why the man-woman gap is progressively narrowing. Although the overall risk of lung cancer is higher, black men are less likely to develop SCLC than white men.

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