Understanding Your Lung Cancer Risk – and How To Lower It

Lung cancer might not get the same attention as breast or colon cancer, but it should.  It’s the leading cause of cancer-related deaths around the world.

It doesn’t help that some primary care physicians have not fully adopted lung cancer screening protocols that have been established and revised over the past 10 to 15 years. Patients, for example, are more likely to be advised about precautionary screenings for breast, colon and prostate cancers.

That’s partly because those screenings have more easily defined starting points. At age 40, women are urged to get mammograms for breast cancer. Colonoscopies are recommended for people over the age of 45. And men older than 55 are asked to consider prostate cancer screenings.

The screening guidelines for lung cancer aren’t so tidy. Making the right recommendation requires an exploration of a patient’s personal smoking history. That is further complicated by the stigma attached to smoking. Many people, when asked by their doctor, may be reluctant to offer an accurate accounting of their smoking past. They may decide, for example, that a half pack sounds better than admitting they smoked two packs a day.

Only by offering honest information can you help your doctor make the correct recommendation on lung cancer screenings.

Screening and Your Smoking History

Unlike with most other cancers, the screening guidelines for lung cancer are a bit more open-ended. Rather than a definitive age-related starting or ending point, the guidance is based on how much you have smoked in your life. The most widely accepted guideline is provided by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The group recommends annual screening for anyone between the ages of 50 and 80 with a history of heavy smoking – defined as 20 pack-years.

Determining the starting point requires a bit of math, based on the fact that a single pack year is defined as smoking an average of one pack of cigarettes each day for a year. So, if you smoked a pack a day, you would hit the screening trigger after 20 years. But you would also hit the trigger point in just 10 years if you smoked two packs a day.

Anyone who falls within the guidelines is urged to get an annual screening, which is done with a quick and painless CT scan that offers detailed images of your lungs.

Reducing Your Risk

These regular screenings are the best way to keep an eye on your lungs in hopes of catching cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages.

There are, of course, other steps you can take to reduce your lung cancer risk. The easiest – at least in theory – is to stop smoking. It is estimated that four out of five lung cancer deaths are linked to smoking.  You also increase your risk by being around smokers, even if you aren’t smoking. Secondhand smoke is the third-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.

Among other factors that can increase your risk is exposure to radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can seep from soil into homes and buildings. People who work with or around asbestos are also at increased risk.

And a final thought about smoking: Don’t look to vaping as a safe replacement for cigarettes. Vaping also exposes your lungs to toxins that can lead to cancer. Some research suggests that, in some instances, it may actually be worse than cigarette smoking.

Warning Signs

One of the biggest dangers with lung cancer is that it is often not detected until it has spread. It is estimated that 85 percent of patients have no symptoms. Unfortunately, there are no reliable blood tests for the disease, and by the time symptoms develop, it may be too late for effective treatments. 

Common lung cancer symptoms include: 

• A cough that persists over two weeks
• A cough with blood
• Unexplained weight loss
• Persistent rib or chest pain without injury
• Shortness of breath
• Frequent headaches
• Loss of balance