If I smoked for 18 years and quit now, what are my risks of getting lung cancer? I am 35.?
Question by Rebekah05: If I smoked for 18 years and quit now, what are my risks of getting lung cancer? I am 35.?
I am at high risk. My father and aunt died at 53 from smoking non-filter cigarettes. I have smoked light. Please only answer if you have medical knowledge. I looked at the National Institute of Health but could not find any statistics.
Best answer:
Answer by Gus
I am not a doctor but have worked for them for 30 years. I heard one tell a patient at one time that while there is still a risk, they lessen it everyday that they stop smoking. The human body is able to repair damage and yours will be doing that as long as you refrain from smoking again. Statistsis may not be available because other factors come into play…how many packs a day, family and genetics, etc.
Link 38 on this page may be what you are looking for but it causes my browser window to crash when I try to open it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer
This website says the following: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/tobacco/cancer
“Smoking cessation has major and immediate health benefits for men and women of all ages. Quitting smoking decreases the risk of lung and other cancers, heart attack, stroke, and chronic lung disease. The earlier a person quits, the greater the health benefit. For example, research has shown that people who quit before age 50 reduce their risk of dying in the next 15 years by half compared with those who continue to smoke (3). Smoking low-yield cigarettes, as compared to cigarettes with higher tar and nicotine, provides no clear benefit to health (2). For additional information on quitting smoking, see the NCI fact sheet Questions and Answers About Smoking Cessation, which can be found at http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation on the Internet.”
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The risk of developing cancer stops increasing when you stop smoking. If you continue to smoke, then your risk of developing cancer will get higher every year.
For example, if your current lifetime risk of developing cancer is 20%, then it will stay at 20% if you quit smoking now. However, if you keep smoking, then within a few years your risk will be up to 40% or 60%. If you smoke long enough, then eventually the risk of cancer reaches near 100%.
Quit now and you dramatically increase your chances of avoiding cancer.
Your overall chance of developing some sort of cancer is about 1 in 4; because you have quit, the chances that if you DO get cancer that it will be lung cancer have actually diminished, so now the statistical probability that you will develop bladder cancer as a consequence of formerly smoking is proportionally increased.
Congratulations on quitting!
Recent studies show that lights increase your chance of lung cancer rather than reducing it, probably because you take in more smoke to get a certain amount of nicotine.
Anyway, the number depends on how much you smoke. Do a search for “smoking risk calculator” and plug in your numbers, it will tell you what you want to know.