HHS HealthBeat (March 15, 2010)

Worse than you might think

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Lung cancer is worse than many people think, and this surprises researcher Christopher Lathan.

The doctor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston saw this in the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends survey. Lathan says people greatly underestimated the danger – only 15 percent of people with lung cancer live five years after diagnosis.

Lathan also was looking at why African-Americans are more likely to get – and die of – lung cancer. He found some possible answers:

``We know that smoking increases the likelihood of having lung cancer, and yet African-Americans were twice as likely to say that they were confused about prevention recommendations.’’  (10 seconds)

The study in the journal Cancer was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 21, 2011