Lung Cancer

Exposure to radon, an odorless radioactive gas that seeps into buildings from underground soil, appears to be responsible for about 13,000 lung cancer deaths a year, according to new data compiled by the National Academy of Science. The study issued today by a committee of leading scientists supports estimates of the risk posed by household radon issued previously by the Environmental Protection Agency. Some critics had attacked those estimates as overestimating the threat.

The Jan. 31 Op-ed Page column questioning the association between lung cancer and smoking demands a standard that is unreasonable in public health issues. The proof that Richard J. Hickey wants is virtually unobtainable, but that doesn't mean that the warnings regarding the safety of smoking are specious. To most people, the weight of evidence linking smoking and lung cancer is compelling because it is biologically plausible, repeatable through observations made in many locations throughout the world and confirmable by a variety of laboratory and animal experiments.

A chest X-ray, which provided early detection of Barbara Steiner's lung cancer, is not universally recommended as an annual precaution for smokers. The American Cancer Society doesn't recommend an annual chest X-ray for smokers who have no symptoms of lung disease. Some physicians question the cost-effectiveness of offering a chest X-ray to every smoker. A Cancer Society study performed in the 1970s found no difference in the long-term survival rates of male smokers over age 40 who had chest X-rays and those who did not. But less extensive studies have shown that early detection can make a difference in survival.

Former Houston Comets guard Kim Perrot, whose lung cancer spread quickly to her brain, has returned to Houston because her condition has worsened, coach Van Chancellor said yesterday. Perrot, who helped the Comets win the first two WNBA championships, announced Feb. 22 that an uncommon form of lung cancer had spread to her brain. She returned to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at Houston's University of Texas on Saturday night from Mexico, where she had been seeking treatment.

Tobacco smoke from spouses, co-workers and friends raises the risk of lung cancer for nonsmokers by 30 percent or more, according to a major study on environmental tobacco smoke released yesterday. "We found that the relative risk for lung cancer in the workplace and in social settings . . . is as great as it is in the home," said Elizabeth Fontham, the Louisiana State University epidemiologist who headed the study. "We are not talking about a large risk of lung cancer, but we are talking about an increased risk," Fontham said.

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's swift decline after his lung cancer diagnosis may not be as surprising as the type of cancer that killed him, according to an oncologist who specializes in treating the disease. The storied coach, who was 85, died Sunday, just 65 days after his son Scott said he had been diagnosed with a "treatable" lung cancer. Mount Nittany Medical Center said Paterno, a nonsmoker, died of "metastatic small-cell carcinoma of the lung," an aggressive cancer that had spread beyond the lung.

It is widely believed that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and certain other afflictions. Interestingly, no molecular, biological, causal mechanism has ever been proven, nor have causal chemicals in cigarette smoke been identified scientifically. It is also noteworthy that many smokers do not contract lung cancer, while some nonsmokers do. Rejecting rhetoric, what is the scientific explanation for this? It is true that, statistically, the lung cancer mortality rate is higher among smokers than among nonsmokers.

The increasing frequency of lung cancer in women because of cigarette smoking could wipe out the eight-year longevity edge they now hold over men, a cancer expert said yesterday. "The incidence is increasing so tremendously that if the trend continues, deaths from lung cancer (among women) could override the difference in life expectancy by the year 2000," said Dr. Loretta Itri, a researcher who works on the development of anti-cancer drugs for Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. of Nutley, N.J. Speaking to a forum at the National Conference on Women's Health, Itri said lung cancer was expected to pass breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in women in 15 states this year.

IN MY CAREER as a thoracic surgeon, I have performed more than 1,500 operations, many of which were for the treatment of lung cancer. Were it not for cigarette smoking, most of these lung-cancer patients would never have met up with me in a hospital operating room. The tragedy of lung cancer is that it is both the most preventable and most deadly cancer. Nearly 87 percent of all lung cancers are caused by smoking. It accounts for fewer than 15 percent of all cancers, but causes more than 30 percent of all deaths.

For decades now, the medical case against smoking has been building. Scientists have conducted epidemiological studies that tracked vast numbers of people and compared the health of smokers with non-smokers. They reached some conclusions that are now as certain as anything science has ever known. One: Smoking kills - the government estimates some 425,000 Americans die of smoking-related disease each year. Two: Kicking the habit dramatically reduces health risks, irrespective of how long people have been smoking or how much they've smoked.