This piece does not do justice to the complexity of this disease. Approximately 20% of diagnosis are in never smokers…that would be around 30-40 thousand Americans per year. So to link this to smoking to simply and so “so don’t smoke” is an incomplete picture. Secondly, the trend is more and more never and non smokers are getting lung cancer year over year.

The most dangerous part of the piece is when the doctor says “if caught early” there is a 90% cure rate. But there is no approved early detection protocols and limitted funding for research because of the stigma that this is a smokers disease…there is no blood test, no breathe test, x-rays fail to turn up anything 80% of the time.

Gigi - a spiral CT scan will show a lot more than an x-ray, I would request this. My mother had chest x-rays every year and they missed her lung cancer completely.

Dude Jones - damage to the lung can be “reversed” such as lung function and health, but the cancer risk can not. But by quitting you are ceasing to increase your risk of cancer, so that is good.

Jeanne - I agree with you

robert - get a spiral CT scan - insurance doesn’t like to pay for it, but it can cost as little as $150

donna, smoking increases your risks, but being in a house with undisturbed asbestos should not increase risks.

my parents home, 54yrs, had asbesto floor tiles and outside tiles, my parents replaced floor themself 10 yrs ago, they were told to hire hasmat, outside still there. my father passed 8 yrs ago, lung cancer,brain clusters. he quite smoking 20 yrs ago. being raised in the house and being a smoker, are my chances high? and would asbesto be part of the female problem i and sisters have had the last 15 yrs?

i was exposed to abestos for a year and a half with out my knowledge live in northen california yreka wondering where can i go to get check for cancer.

I had a handyman that broke my air ducting and I did not know and it was lined with asbestos. I was extremely sick for about 5 months before an AC man figured it out. I worry all the time because I have coughing issues all the time and I wake up every morning and have trouble breathing. I have had my lungs x-rayed and nothing. Is there another procedure that I should look at?

You stated in the interview that if caught in the early stages you had a 90% cure rate. My husband had stage 1a and died 3 1/2 years to the date of his surgery. At that time the statistics were far different… there was a 33% chance of recurrance and if that happened there was very little survival chance. I think that a 90% cure rate was a bit overstated. I have had at least three friends die of lung cancer. Two of whom never smoked.

If I quit today, can the damage be reversed?