CANCER
This dissertation looks at the different cancers arising from the cells in the tissue of the lungs. In the first section I look at normal lung anatomy and physiology. In lung cancer the normal process is interrupted, I next look at the process of tumor formation and metastasis and the classification of different types of lung cancer.
In the UK the various types of lung cancer are the highest cancer killers in Men and second highest in Women.1 Smoking causes lung cancer; over 80% of lung cancers are attributable to smoking.2 The next section covers the etiology of lung cancer and looks at the role of smoking, other environmental factors and genetic influences.
Smoking is the single biggest cause of preventable illness and premature death in the UK. Lung cancer was extremely rare in the nineteenth century, even as late as 1912; Adler could find only 374 cases.
Smoking lung cancer
High rates of lung cancer (indicated in this map b...
Lung cancer3 By the 1970s lung cancer had become the biggest killing cancer. The increase in lung cancer coincides with the advent of smoking as a mass habit. In the late nineteenth century tobacco companies developed machines to mass produce cigarettes and made smoking accessible to the masses, smoking was heavily promoted and by 1950 the top five US brands sold over 300 billion cigarettes with 44-47% of all adult Americans smoking.3 Today the rate of lung cancer in the UK is falling in Men, but still rising in women, with increasing numbers of children aged 11-15 smoking.4 In the next section I look in more detail at the epidemiology of lung cancer.
Moving towards the medical aspects of lung cancer I look first at the clinical features and then what investigations are used in the diagnosis of lung cancer. After looking at the ways we can diagnose lung cancer I...