This web page is dedicated to the memory of Stephen Teel.
Steve was my patient, as well as a friend and long-time collaborator, who provided the web design and web services for this page. He died on July 31, 2004 at age 46 after a valiant 7-year struggle against cancers of the head and neck, lung and esophagus. Steve made a valuable contribution to society by creating a web site where cancer survivors could tell their life stories.
His family maintains Steve’s web page, including the illustrated web-diary of his illness at Cancer Warriors. Steve will be badly missed.
Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in both men and women in the United States.
More than 154,000 Americans will die from lung cancer in 2010.
Only 12-15% of patients with lung cancer are being cured with today's treatments.
There is exciting new information on the early detection of lung cancer using low-dose, non-contrast, spiral computerized tomography (CT or CAT scan). Lung Cancer Screening 2009 80% of patients with lung cancer detected by computerized tomographic (CT) screening in the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) achieve long-term survival.
More than 90% of lung cancers are preventable.
Recent polls indicate that, despite all accumulated knowledge on the subject of diseases caused by tobacco products, a shockingly high percentage of smokers continue to believe that their cigarettes will not cause them harm. This page is dedicated to changing this intolerable ignorance. It is my hope that anyone who visits here and browses through the pages of the Lung Cancer and Cigarette Smoking Web Page will leave with eyes open to the danger of lung cancer and other diseases caused by tobacco.
A recent National Cancer Institute focus group suggests that many ex-smokers believe that they are no longer at risk for lung cancer. This is a dangerous misperception. Unfortunately, some risk of lung cancer persists for many years following smoking cessation. The good news is that the risk diminishes with the passage of time.
The overwhelming majority of lung cancers, greater than 90%, are caused by cigarette smoking. There are currently almost fifty million smokers in the U.S. and another fifty million are ex-smokers.
This means that approximately one third of the population of our country is at high risk for this terrible disease and for multiple other tobacco-related diseases, including cancers of the mouth, tongue, throat, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, bladder and kidney, and also at risk for coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, gangrene of the legs and stroke.
An effort will also be made to provide deeper layers of more specialized information on lung cancer for nurses, medical students, physicians in training and practicing physicians. Files written in technical language and intended for health professionals will be marked with an icon
Some of this information is written by me, adapted from lecture notes and publications, and some is in the form of links to other web pages, that I have found to be particularly valuable. Some of the older material may have some information that is out of date.
27% of the E-mail and form responses I receive at this site comes from persons 21 years of age and younger. In an attempt to meet the special needs of this group, who represent a specific target group for predatory tobacco industry marketing and advertising, I have opened a new WWW page entitled The Young Person's Cyber-Library of Information on Tobacco and Tobacco-Caused Disease.
Young people may wish to follow the link there now.
One glaring weakness of the page is the almost total absence of input from nurses. I welcome links and submissions of information on the nursing care of patients with lung cancer and other smoking related diseases, including palliative care and hospice care.
There is exciting new information on the early detection of lung cancer using low-dose, non-contrast, spiral computerized tomography (CT or CAT scan). Lung Cancer Screening
My experience with this page has been presented at two international chest medical conferences in Gdansk, Poland and in Dublin, Ireland. The abstracts of these presentations can be found at these links.
The page is arranged into 4 sections.
The Tobacco and the Public Health How are your state's elected officials doing to protect the health of citizens by passing effective tobacco control legislation? Find out by reading the information state by state in this new report from the American Lung Association.
If your state got a failing grade, please consider writing to your elected officials to tell them that they are not doing their job properly, and you will remember this the next time that you step into a voting booth.
The other three sections, Lung Cancer and Other Diseases Caused by Tobacco Products - Diagnosis of Lung Cancer & Treatment of Lung Cancer, are in a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) format.