The risk of lung cancer stays elevated for 20 or more years after a person stops smoking.


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APRIL.MAY MUST READ
Lung Cancer Smoke Screen
By Mary Anne Dunkin

It's the No. 1 cancer killer of women. And more than half of its victims don't smoke.

 

You dutifully get your annual Pap smear and mammogram. You perform your monthly breast self-exam, routinely check your skin for changing moles and slather on sunscreen before heading outdoors. But unless you are a smoker, you've probably given little thought to lung cancer. It's time you should.

Lung cancer, the No. 1 cancer killer of women, takes more women's lives each year than breast, cervical, skin and colon cancers combined – experts attribute this to the rising number of women smokers in the late 1960s and early1970s.

Despite public perception, experts say that more than half of women diagnosed with lung cancer don't smoke; in fact, an estimated 20 percent have never smoked. Yet because of its close association with smoking, lung cancer – and the women who have it – often fail to get the attention they need and deserve.

 

Read more about the disease that recently killed Dana Reeve and thousands of other women in the April.May issue of PINK.

 

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