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Lung cancer is the most diagnosed and deadliest cancer worldwide, with 2.2 million cases in 2020 resulting in 1.8 million deaths. [3] Lung cancer is rare in those younger than 40; the average age at diagnosis is 70 years, and the average age at death 72. [2] Incidence and outcomes vary widely across the world, depending on patterns of tobacco use.
The first cause of cancer was identified by British surgeon Percivall Pott, who discovered in 1775 that cancer of the scrotum was a common disease among chimney sweeps. [ citation needed ] The work of other individual physicians led to various insights, but when physicians started working together they could draw firmer conclusions.
Nearly 40% of lung cancers are adenocarcinomas, which usually originates in peripheral lung tissue. [10] Most cases of adenocarcinoma are associated with smoking; however, among people who have smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetimes ("never-smokers"), [ 11 ] adenocarcinoma is the most common form of lung cancer. [ 12 ]
Lung squamous-cell carcinoma is the second most common histologic type of lung cancer after adenocarcinoma, reaching 22.6% of all lung cancer cases as of 2012. [11] The relative incidence of the former has been steadily decreasing in favor of the latter due to the decreasing smoking rates in the last few years. [9]
The most common as of 2018 are lung cancer (1.76 million deaths), colorectal cancer (860,000) stomach cancer (780,000), liver cancer (780,000), and breast cancer (620,000). [2] This makes invasive cancer the leading cause of death in the developed world and the second leading in the developing world . [ 24 ]
Accumulation of these cancer cells causes a microscopic focus of abnormal cells that are, at least initially, locally confined within the specific tissue in which the progenitor cell resided. This condition is called squamous-cell carcinoma in situ , and it is diagnosed when the tumor has not yet penetrated the basement membrane or other ...
Men who currently smoke tobacco develop lung cancer at a rate 14 times that of men who have never smoked tobacco: the chance of lung cancer in a current smoker being caused by smoking is about 93%; there is a 7% chance that the smoker's lung cancer was caused by radon gas or some other, non-tobacco cause. [34]
The incidence of lung cancer is highly correlated with smoking. Tobacco smoking is associated with many forms of cancer, [20] and causes 80% of lung cancer. [21] Decades of research has demonstrated the link between tobacco use and cancer in the lung, larynx, head, neck, stomach, bladder, kidney, esophagus and pancreas. [22]