Lung cancer more likely for women smokers

Nightly News with Brian Williams and MSNBC.com describe a new study of women smokers. Excerpts below.

Link: Lung cancer more likely for women smokers - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com

Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College has been following almost 17,000 smokers and former smokers for eight years or more. She uses sophisticated scans to look for the earliest signs of lung cancer.

"If you match them age by age by pack-year, women get more cancers, twice as many," Henschke says.

The one small piece of good news that women more often survive.

"They are more likely to get it but less likely to die of it," Henschke says.

Still lung cancer will kill 73,000 American women this year — more than will die from breast and ovarian cancer combined.

Scientists do not know why women are affected differently by cigarette smoke. It appears the cells in women's lungs respond differently to the toxins in cigarettes. But the public health message is clear.

"Young women need to understand that they are more likely to get lung cancer, so they really should not start smoking," Henschke says.