Lung cancer is currently the 2nd most common cancer in both men and women (excluding skin cancer) and is the top cause of all cancer deaths. There is a direct association of tobacco smoking and other pollutant and toxic exposures to lung cancer making it the leading preventable cause of death. Lung cancer was a rare disease before the advent of cigarette smoking and was not even identified as a distinct disease until 17611. Since the early 1900’s, lung cancer rates have grown until now where it is a national epidemic2.
There two major classes of lung cancer, small cell carcinoma and non-small cell lung carcinoma. The non-small cell carcinoma is further subdivided into subtypes of which there are 3 main categories; squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma and large cell carcinoma. Adenomarcinoma and small cell carcinoma are the two types most associated with smoking. Treatments include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy with varying degrees of success. Overall lung cancer has a high mortality with some variation between the different types and stages of carcinoma. For these reasons, it is more pertinent to focus on prevention rather than treatment of lung cancer.