12-05-2008, 09:20 PM
It's not really a matter of how many cigarettes you smoke... If it were a number, that would imply everyone who smoked would get lung cancer eventually. And that's not true.
In fact, when it comes to calculating risk equations for cancers from tobacco usage, there is a survivor's benefit... In short, the factor they multiple with the length of time you've been smoking goes DOWN after a certain amount of time. Your risk increases and increases and increases as your "time smoking" goes up... But only to a point. After a while, it starts to go back DOWN.
(Basically, what that's saying is that the longer you smoke, the more at risk you are. BUT, at a certain point, if you've been smoking for say 30 years? The chances that you'll develop lung cancer get smaller. At that point, we can begin to assume your genetic makeup and risk factors are just not aligned right to get lung cancer.)
Anyway...
Depending on your risk factors, the percentage of smokers who get lung cancer ranges from 1% to 15%.
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