How Does Lung Cancer Develop?

Lung cancer develops when the body produces more cells in the lungs than it needs, and these cells eventually accumulate into a lung tumor. While some lung tumors are "benign," meaning they are not life threatening, "malignant" lung tumors are cancerous and will cause death if left untreated.

Lung cancer can develop in the lungs themselves. In some instances however, cancer starts in other tissue or organs of the body, and spreads to the lungs. This process is known as metastasis. When cancer spreads from one organ to another, it is said to have "metastasized." There are a number of risk factors and causes of cancer of the lung. To learn more about them, click on lung cancer causes.

Lung cancer can develop in any part of the lungs, but in approximately 9 out of 10 cases, it begins in the cells that line the airways. The medical names for these airways are the bronchi and bronchioles. The cancer that develops in them is often called bronchogenic carcinoma or bronchogenic cancer.

The remaining types of lung cancer originate in the pleura (the thin layer of tissue that lines the lungs), or, in rare cases from other tissue in the lungs (e.g. blood vessels).

More people die of lung cancer than any other type of cancer. Every year in the United States, doctors diagnose more than 200,000 new cases. Approximately 160,000 of those cases end in death. Cancer of the lung is most common in those over 65 years of age. This age group accounts for 7 out of 10 cases.

Those under age 45, on the other hand, represent only about 3 percent. There was a sharp upswing in the number of people who got lung cancer in the mid-20th century, correlating to the number of people who began to smoke cigarettes during that time.

In recent years, lung cancer cases have declined due to increased public awareness about the dangers of smoking. But cancer of the lung is still one of the most common types of cancer, and it recently surpassed breast cancer as the cause of the most cancer-related deaths among women.

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