Nov. 30: NBC's chief science correspondent Robert Bazell reviews new research showing that
people who haven't smoked for years, risk lung cancer from previous smoking.
Some promising information for people smoke and people who have stopped smoking long ago.
Our chief science correspondent Robert Bazell joins us now more on this.
Good morning.
Good morning, Ann. This is the latest research about a test to try to find lung cancer at its earliest
stages while it’s treatable. There are two big questions. Does the test really save lives? And if it
does, who should get it?
Sassily Harris has been fighting lung cancer for years now. She had been a heavy smoker, but
stopped fifteen years before she was diagnosed.
I remember being told that once you stop smoking, your lungs rejuvenate, they are fine. But
evidently, they are not.
In fact, most lung cancer these days is diagnosed in former smokers.
So, yes we are going to see some CT scans here.
Elena, doctor of cardiology in New York Presbyterian Hospital, describes how great the risk is.
It stays with you life long. You can decrease the risk by stopping smoking, but that it never goes
down beyond that of somebody who hasn’t smoke. So the risk once you started smoking, the risk
remains.
We can show via biotechnology that it is really growing.
Doctor Hanky is an expert on the experimental use of computerized X-rays and CT scans to find
lung cancer at its earliest stages.
Keep your eyes closed. This is a really tiny…, this is what you are looking for, Yeah. This is
something that you would just never see.
Doctor neighs denies the results. For more than 27,000 former and current smokers, she has found
more than 400 cancers, and followed the patients for up to ten years.
Our death were only 4%, that’s an amazing number compared to the usual care who were
practically five to …. only five to ten percent are living, or 90% or more are dead.
The CT of lung scans cost about 300 dollars. Because they are considered experimental, they are
not covered by insurances, but many former smokers have gotten them already and hope they
escape this most deadly cancer.
What determines significant risks to lung cancer, Doctor Hanky result so far show it’s a
combination of how much a person smoked in a life time and how they are. So a person who
smokes two or three packs a day may not be great risk at age forty, but there will be a great risk at
sixty even if they have quitted. So the damage that smoking causes stays with you even and it
becomes more important as you get older.
… who you know I can think that people who …..are going to get this test….
What should people do who are concerned about the potential availability?
About a million and a half people have gotten test paying for themselves. The argument against
this test is that it just has been proven yet you have to save lives and that it can find false positive
so that people end up having surgery for non-cancer’s… that people don not need.
Doctor Hanky’s result are increasingly showing that it’s finding a way to cancer, that this is an
argument that has been going on medicine and it’s going to continue for a while. But a lot people
are voting with their …..
Right… are we seeing more cancer now from smoking?
No, the amount of cancer in man has actually gone down because they stop a while ago and
women … a huge numbers … more than anything else, but what’s happening … and the reason
for former smokers is a fascinating concept that cancer doesn’t just, eh…excuse me, smoking
doesn’t just cause lung cancer. It causes heart diseases and all kinds of other things. So people
who stop smoking reduce the risk for heart diseases, so they wouldn’t… they are not dying like
fires like they used, but they are living long enough through they get the lung cancer.
Bottom line is you know we see so many young people today … smoking, and … it’s just crazy
that the message is still not getting to everyone. I mean is there ever a safe amount to smoke?
There’s … the more you smoke, the worse it is clearly. That’s true for almost any kind of poison.
But smoking is addictive and as poison. And every time I see a young person lighting up, and I see
them all the time because I have a daughter at high school.
You want to grab the cigarette out…
Yes, absolutely. And it’s frustrating because this is cigarettes are deadly and we can’t see that often
enough.
Oh, I will thank you for helping us ….in this program… Bazell, thank you.