What is your risk of lung cancer? - Smoking Cessation Message Board

GeorgiaPeech · 09-05-2003, 05:43 PM

I notice that several posters have wondered about cancer risk. The Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has an online "prediction tool" for performing a lung cancer risk assessment of an individual. [url="http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/12463.cfm"]http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/12463.cfm[/url]

[This message has been edited by moderator2 (edited 09-10-2003).]

MomOf4PreciousHearts · 09-08-2003, 06:34 PM

I really don't like this tool - no offense - but the reason WHY is that it goes on about smokers who are 50 years of age or older - what's up with that?

Before I got lung cancer (age of 38) I thought you had to be over 50, 60, etc. before you got lung cancer. I thought anyone under that age would be like really rare if they got it.

Then I got it.

LUNG CANCER.

And I've met lots of people with it since then. I've survived almost 2 years now. Many of the people I've met with lung cancer are in their 30s and 40s - TONS in their 40s (!!!!) and quite a few in their 30s - most are NOT early stage, most are dying, late stage.

What good does that tool do for people who get lung cancer in their 30s and 40s? I already have had lung cancer - before the age of 40

That tool, to me, is like saying people under age of 50 don't have lung cancer - or that the number of them is small -

and it is NOT. The number under 50 with lung cancer is HUGE. It's not as many as in their 50s but crap, it's a lot !

Forgive me - I'm not angry with you - I'm angry with a system that doesn't acknowledge openly the large numbers dying of lung cancer in their 30s and 40s. There are plenty. I'm doing my best not to be one of them.

GeorgiaPeech · 09-08-2003, 08:18 PM

The risk assessment tool as developed is reliable for those over 50, but isn't reliable for those younger than 50. Perhaps some day they will eventually develop a reliable assessment for those younger than 50, but until then...

If you smoke, stop.

MomOf4PreciousHearts · 09-08-2003, 09:06 PM

I quit smoking before I was diagnosed with lung cancer, haven't smoked since, have no plans to.

Wish the medical world would get the message out to the general public that there are thousands of people in their 30s and 40s dying of lung cancer.