November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month and today marks the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, a day to encourage and support smokers to quit, or make actionable plans to quit, in an effort to improve our country’s health.1
Despite all of the marketing and campaigning against tobacco use over the years, nearly one in five American adults still smoke cigarettes.1 Smoking is deleterious for your health and is the chief risk factor for developing lung cancer, estimated at causing 85-90 percent of all lung cancer cases.2,3
Even though incidence and death rates of lung cancer in the U.S. have slowly declined over the past decade, it is still the second most common form of cancer among men and women and it remains the number one cause of cancer death, responsible for approximately 27.5 percent of all cancer deaths.4,5
There’s a lot of great information out there about lung cancer, but we thought Mount Sinai’s comprehensive infographic summed it all up best in a visually appealing way.3
Caryn Huneke is completing her dietetic internship and MS degree in Nutrition Education at Teachers College, Columbia University to become a Registered Dietitian.
Resources
1. The Great American Smokeout. American Cancer Society. Accessed on November 21, 2013.http://www.cancer.org/healthy/stayawayfromtobacco/greatamericansmokeout/index
2. Lung Cancer Risk Factors. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed November 21, 2013.http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
3. The Lowdown on Lung Cancer Infographic. The Mount Sinai Hospital. 2013. http://www.mountsinai.org/lung-cancer/about-lung-cancer/the-lowdown-on-lung-cancer-infographic
4. SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Lung and Bronchus Cancer. Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute. Accessed November 21, 2013. http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/lungb.html
5. Lung Cancer (non-small cell). American Cancer Society. Accessed on November 21, 2013.http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/003115-pdf.pdf
