RT Book, Section A1 Horn, Leora A1 Iams, Wade T. A2 Loscalzo, Joseph A2 Fauci, Anthony A2 Kasper, Dennis A2 Hauser, Stephen A2 Longo, Dan A2 Jameson, J. Larry SR Print(0) ID 1207536706 T1 Neoplasms of the Lung T2 Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 21e YR 2022 FD 2022 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781264268504 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1207536706 RD 2024/11/09 AB Lung cancer, which was rare before 1900 with fewer than 400 cases described in the medical literature, is considered a disease of modern man, killing over three times as many men as prostate cancer and nearly twice as many women as breast cancer. Although lung cancer remains the number one cause of cancer-related mortality, a decline in lung cancer deaths has emerged, attributed to improvements in testing and therapeutic strategies and a decline in tobacco usage. Tobacco consumption is the primary cause of lung cancer, a reality firmly established in the mid-twentieth century and codified with the release of the U.S. Surgeon General’s 1964 report on the health effects of tobacco smoking. Following the report, cigarette use started to decline in North America and parts of Europe, and with it, so did the incidence of lung cancer. Although tobacco smoking remains the primary cause of lung cancer worldwide, approximately 60% of new lung cancers in the United States occur in former smokers (smoked ≥100 cigarettes per lifetime, quit ≥1 year), many of whom quit decades ago, or never smokers (smoked <100 cigarettes per lifetime). Moreover, one in five women and one in 12 men diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked.