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Can you calculate your risk of lung cancer?

By bioephemera on July 8, 2008.

Sloan-Kettering's online lung cancer risk calculator tells smokers what their relative risk of cancer would be if they quit.

I'm all in favor of getting people to quit smoking, but this kind of risk can really only be calculated for groups, not individuals. Will people using the calculator understand that?

Sloan-Kettering recommends the tool for "people who meet all of these conditions: Age: 50 to 75 years old; Smoking History: 10 to 60 cigarettes a day for 25 to 55 years; Current Status: Current smokers, and former smokers who quit 20 years ago or less." My mom is one of those people, but I'm not sure how she'd be impacted by a "prognostic nomogram" that told her if she quit, she has a 1% chance of lung cancer, and if she did not, she has a 2% chance. Would she feel that the 1% risk even if she quits means it's too late to bother? Would she feel that both 1% and 2% were negligibly small risks? Would the phrasing "quitting cuts your risk of lung cancer in half" change how she feels about the numbers 1% and 2%?

As it happens, my mom recently did quit, which is why these are all hypothetical questions. The driving force behind her decision wasn't fear of future cancer; it was other respiratory problems caused by smoking, which restricted her breathing and had an immediate impact on her life. I'm not sure whether this calculator would have had much effect on her choice, and in general, I'm not sure giving people personalized risk calculations like this is the best thing to do. It's hard to understand what risk means for an individual. What do you think?

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Thanks for the information on cancer, Jessica. That is very interesting. I agree that they should really pay attention to the idividual.

We recently wrote an article on cancer at Brain Blogger. Could it be possible to cure cancer of any type, at any stage? According to recent studies by research centers all across America, it might be

We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Kelly

Anyone who knows a smoker should get them to try this risk calculator. Maybe it will make a difference in whether they continue on damaging their health by smoking.

Pete: You fail to understand the psychology of addiction. A rational assessment of the risks has absolutely nothing to do with it.