Q:   What causes lung cancer?
A:   Cigarette smoking is responsible for 79 percent of lung cancers among women. Those who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes a day have lung cancer mortality rates 12 to 25 times greater than that of nonsmokers. Another leading cause of lung cancer is on-the-job exposure to carcinogens. Asbestos is perhaps the best known of the industrial substances associated with lung cancer, but there are many cancer-causing substances that people may deal with at work. Some others are uranium, arsenic and certain petroleum products.

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Q:   Who usually gets lung cancer?
A:   Lung cancer occurs most often in people over 50 who have long histories of cigarette smoking. The incidence of lung cancer in women as a whole has climbed at an alarming rate, and these increases are clearly attributable to the increases in the number of women who have smoked.

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