Oct
i was wondering, my uncle (older brother of my father)
had cancer few years ago but recovered from it tahnkfully,
it was a Lung cancer caused by smoking.
and hes the only person i know from my relative branches that got cancer.
my father used to be a heavy smoker bak like when i was born til 14, im 15 right now. but he does not have cancer nor ever got one.
my uncle who got one was a heavy heavy smoker and somehow got the lunch caner.
i was wondering if i can ever get it if i smoked cigarettes.
and also if i can get lunch cancer even though i dont smoke cigarettes.
maybe marijuana onces in a while though.
Answer:
This question comes up a great deal. This is data from a Canadian study I use to answer this question. (You can go to the site for the full info as you wish.)
Male smokers - lifetime risk of lung cancer is 1 in 6
Female smokers – the danger of lung cancer is 1 in 9
Risk of lung cancer in non-smokers is 1 in 77
Can J Public Health. 1994 Nov-Dec;85(6):385-8.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/78952…
All studies relate the danger of lung cancer to the amount and the number of years of smoking. Many - actually most - smokers get away with smoking as far as lung cancer, and about half do not seem to have other health consequences from smoking like emphysema or heart disease or other smoking related cancers such as mouth, throat, larynx, stomach or bladder cancer. It is a personal decision if one wishes to take the risk.
The trouble from my perspective as a cancer physician is that we don't have very effective treatments for most smoking related cancers. They’re among the most difficult to treat effectively with chemotherapy - so if a person is unlucky and develops cancer from smoking, we usually cannot cure them no matter how hard we try. It's very frustrating for both patient and physician, and it is an outcome that may well have been prevented if the person would have stopped smoking early.
I suspect your uncle was cured by surgery. There are some people who do well after surgery. Here's the usual outcome data (from the internet):
60% of people diagnosed with either general type of lung cancer (non-small cell or small cell) are dead in 1 year.
73% are dead by 2 years.
1 in 7 people diagnosed with lung cancer survive 5 years
– most of those who are cured are cured with initial surgery
- - not with chemotherapy.
Answer:
There is always the possibility of getting cancer if you’re smoker, family history is only one of the factors but environment is more significant. Meaning if you smoke or are exposed to second hand smoke you may get cancer. To my knowledge marijuana is not a risk factor for cancer or at least it has not been linked to any type of cancer yet.