what are the chances that 17-year old gets lung cancer for 7 months of smoking? and generally, what are the chances?
Cancer - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
it depends on the diagnostic work ups of the doctor... almost everyone has cancer even the babies...
2 :
slim to none but long term exposure to second hand smoke can be a cause. There is also radon gas from basement foundations that could be a cause. This is all unlikely but possible.
3 :
Minimal. Smoking causes lung cancer after many years. The problem that keeps it going is the addiction. Stop now - for some people it becomes too difficult after a long time - I have smoked for many years. Wish I didn't.
4 :
7 months of smoking is unlikely to have caused cancer.. however, there is still an increased risk of it. Anything that causes the wrong type of DNA mutation could cause you to have cancer, so just quit smoking ASAP, or even better.. never start. Lung Cancer Causes Cigarette smoking is the most significant cause of lung cancer. Research as far back as the 1950s clearly established this relationship. * Cigarette smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals, many of which have been identified as causing cancer. * A person who smokes more than 1 pack of cigarettes per day has a risk of developing lung cancer 20-25 times greater than someone who has never smoked. * Once a person quits smoking, his or her risk for lung cancer gradually decreases. About 15 years after quitting, the risk for lung cancer decreases to the level of someone who never smoked. * Cigar and pipe smoking increases the risk of lung cancer but not as much as smoking cigarettes does. About 85% of lung cancers occur in a smoker or former smoker. The risk of developing lung cancer is related to the following factors: * The number of cigarettes smoked * The age at which a person started smoking * How long a person has smoked (or had smoked before quitting) Other causes of lung cancer include the following: * Passive smoking, or sidestream smoke, presents another risk for lung cancer. A person living with a smoker has twice the risk of lung cancer of someone not regularly exposed to smoke. * Air pollution from motor vehicles, factories, and other sources may increase the risk for lung cancer, but the degree of increase has not been established accurately. * Asbestos exposure increases the risk of lung cancer by 9 times. A combination of asbestos exposure and cigarette smoking compounds the risk by as much as 50 times. * Lung diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), also create a risk for lung cancer. A person with COPD has a 4-6 times greater risk of lung cancer even when the effect of cigarette smoking is excluded.
5 :
What we eally want to know is whether that short period of smoking will have caused a cancer to grow. We can estimate a risk that one already has a dormant cancer. But if they have one, will it be triggered to grow by that short exposure to smoking? We can not know that for an individual. The population as a whole we can say that the risk is essentially the same as a person who has never smoked. But, if you happen to be someone who has a dormant cancer, we will put the risk a lot higher. We find out which you are way later. The risk of stimulating growth of a non-existent cancer may not be zero. There may be some actual causation as well as growth stimulation. It may take growth stimulation over a lot of time to get a lethal cancer by age 65 or 70. With only 7 months stimulation, one might be 95 before a cancer becomes lethal. That is no more than an uninformed guess. But some studies suggest that beta carotene can substitute for tobacco in stimulating growth of lung cancer. That is the only kind of cancer fingered in the study.
6 :
Minimal to negligible. If she had a cancer in the lung, it would be other kinds of cancer that metastasize to the lung. The chance of that happening for all 17 year old girls will be very low still. Probably 1 in 10 million.
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