Lung cancer: What you should know about the disease

Former YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki died on Friday at the age of 56, as her husband announced in a Facebook post. Wojcicki had lung cancer. Around 56,000 people in Germany are diagnosed with the disease every year. According to the German Cancer Society, lung cancer is one of the most common malignant diseases in Germany. An overview:

What is lung cancer?

Various malignant tumors can develop in lung tissue. Bronchial carcinomas are the most common type of lung cancer. They are so-called solid tumors. These are tissue growths that originate from an organ or tissue and initially only grow in that location. If the disease progresses, such tumors can spread throughout the body – metastases form.

What symptoms occur with lung cancer?

If the tumor in the lung is small and the disease is still in an early stage, patients usually have no symptoms. This is because the lung itself has no pain fibers and nerves. The organ itself cannot hurt patients, explained Birgit Hantzsch-Kuhn, pulmonologist and senior physician in the oncology department of the Lung Clinic in Großhansdorf, in an interview with the star. Complaints and symptoms usually only appear late in the disease’s course. In addition, some complaints can also be caused by other diseases. Symptoms that may indicate lung cancer and should be checked by a doctor:

What are the chances of recovery from lung cancer?

Basically, the earlier lung cancer is detected, the better the chances of recovery. Because it is usually only discovered when the disease is at an advanced stage, many people die from it: more than 44,800 people in Germany die of lung cancer every year, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Men die more often from this type of cancer than women.

How common is lung cancer?

In Germany, lung cancer is the most common malignant tumor disease in men after prostate cancer. In women, lung cancer is the most common type of cancer after breast cancer and colon cancer.

When doctors diagnose lung cancer, women are on average 69 years old and men 70. If you look at the numbers alone, more and more people are developing lung cancer. But one reason for this is the increased life expectancy – people are living longer these days and are therefore developing cancer more often, writes the German Cancer Research Center. “If you take the ‘age’ factor out, a different picture emerges: the number of men who are suffering from the disease has been decreasing slightly for several years, while the number of women is increasing. Experts assume that this is due to changes in smoking habits. Over the last few decades, there have been more and more female smokers and fewer and fewer male smokers,” reports the German Cancer Research Center.

What risk factors promote lung cancer?

Smoking, i.e. tobacco consumption, is the main risk factor for lung cancer. In men, up to nine out of ten cases and in women at least six out of ten cases can be traced back to smoking, writes the RKI. This is because inhaled cigarette smoke contains a large number of carcinogenic substances, such as olioaromatic and heterocyclic hydrocarbons or N-nitrosamines.

The risk of a smoker developing lung cancer depends, of course, on the duration and frequency of smoking. Those who smoke very frequently and have been doing so since their youth have a particularly high risk of developing lung cancer. “Lifelong smokers increase the risk of lung cancer in men by 24 times compared to lifelong non-smokers,” reports the German Cancer Society.

Those who do not smoke but are constantly exposed to cigarette smoke have an increased risk of disease. “It is estimated that people who are regularly exposed to passive cigarette smoke at work or in their private lives have a 1.3-fold (for adenocarcinomas) to 3-fold (for small cell lung cancer) increased risk of lung cancer,” says the German Cancer Society.

The vapor from e-cigarettes also contains carcinogenic substances such as formaldehyde or acetaldehyde. In addition to smoking, air pollution and genes can also play a role in the development of lung cancer.

Even people who do not smoke can get lung cancer. According to a study from 2020, out of 100 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients, 12 have never smoked. It is known that lung cancer occurs more frequently in women who do not smoke and at a younger age than in smokers. Why this is so has yet to be researched. A certain mutation is suspected. star Two young non-smokers talked about their lung cancer.

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