According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, accounting for 1 out of every 5 cancer fatalities. Early detection is imperative for increasing survival with lung cancer before the disease spreads beyond the lungs.
Currently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends yearly lung cancer screening for adults aged 50 to 80 years who have a 20-pack-year smoking history, and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years.
The screening test used for lung cancer is called low-dose computed tomography, or a low-dose CT scan. During the test, you lie down on a table and a machine scans your chest in order to take images of your lungs. It only takes a few minutes to do and doesn’t cause any pain.
Despite the screening recommendations, only 5% of people who are eligible to get screened for lung cancer are actually getting screened, said Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang, a thoracic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and founder of the American Lung Cancer Screening Initiative.
And even though screenings are highly recommended for those who smoke or have smoked in the past, nonsmokers can get lung cancer too. That’s why it’s imperative for people to bring up issues like family history, living environments or new symptoms with their primary care doctor.
“Lung cancer in people who never smoked could be related to living with a smoker, or potentially related to genetic factors, particularly if they have a first degree relative who had lung cancer and never smoked,” said Daniel J. Boffa, the clinical director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers at Yale Cancer Center. ”There are also environmental risk factors such as radon, arsenic in the soil, and even asbestos, which increase the risk for lung cancer.”
Below, we spoke to lung experts about the sneaky signs of lung cancer that you should know about:
No symptoms at all
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