Lung cancer facts for kids
Lung cancer is a serious disease where unhealthy cells start growing in your lungs. These bad cells can form a lump called a tumor. This often happens because tiny parts inside your lung cells, called DNA, get damaged. Often, this damage comes from cigarette smoking or breathing in harmful chemicals.
When these cells are damaged, they start to grow out of control. If not treated, these tumors can spread and harm your lungs. They can even travel to other parts of your body.
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What are the symptoms of lung cancer?
Early lung cancer often does not show any signs. Doctors might only find it using special medical imaging tests. As the cancer grows, people might start to have problems with their breathing. These can include coughing, feeling shortness of breath, or having chest pain. Other signs depend on where the tumor is and how big it has grown.
How do doctors diagnose lung cancer?
If doctors think someone might have lung cancer, they will do several imaging tests. These tests help them find any tumors and see how big they are. To be sure it is lung cancer, doctors need to take a small piece of the suspected tumor. This is called a biopsy. A special doctor, called a pathologist, then looks at this piece under a microscope. They can tell if the cells are cancerous.
Pathologists also figure out what type of lung cancer it is. About 15% of cases are called small-cell lung cancer. The other 85% are non-small-cell lung cancers. These include types like adenocarcinoma and squamous-cell carcinoma. After diagnosis, more tests are done to see how far the cancer has spread. This helps doctors plan the best treatment.
How is lung cancer treated?
For lung cancer found early, doctors might do surgery to remove the tumor. Sometimes, after surgery, people get radiation therapy or chemotherapy. These treatments help kill any cancer cells that might be left behind.
If the cancer has spread further, doctors use radiation therapy and chemotherapy. They also use special medicines that target specific types of cancer cells. Even with treatment, about 20 out of 100 people live for five years after their diagnosis. People who are diagnosed earlier, are younger, or are women tend to have better outcomes.
What causes lung cancer?
Most cases of lung cancer are caused by tobacco smoking. Smoking puts many harmful chemicals into your lungs. Other causes include breathing in dangerous substances like asbestos or radon gas. Sometimes, lung cancer can also happen because of genetic mutations that occur by chance.
How can lung cancer be prevented?
To prevent lung cancer, it is important to avoid harmful chemicals. The best way to prevent it is to not smoke. If someone already smokes, quitting can greatly lower their chance of getting lung cancer. Quitting smoking also helps people who have already been diagnosed with lung cancer. It can make their treatment work better.
How common is lung cancer?
Lung cancer is the most diagnosed cancer around the world. It is also the deadliest. In 2020, about 2.2 million people were diagnosed with it. Sadly, 1.8 million people died from lung cancer that year.
Lung cancer is rare in people younger than 40. The average age for diagnosis is 70 years old. The average age for death is 72. How often lung cancer occurs and how well people do after diagnosis can vary. This often depends on how common tobacco use is in different parts of the world. Before cigarettes became popular in the 1900s, lung cancer was a very rare disease.
Images for kids
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Pneumonectomy specimen containing a squamous-cell carcinoma, seen as a white area near the bronchi
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The main treatment arms of phase 3 clinical trials providing immunotherapy in the first line for patients with NSCLC
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Overall survival in NSCLC patients treated with protocols incorporating immunotherapy in the first line for advanced or metastatic disease. Nasser NJ, Gorenberg M, Agbarya A. Pharmaceuticals 2020, 13(11), 373;
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Lung cancer, incidence, mortality, and survival, England 1971–2011
See also
In Spanish: Cáncer de pulmón para niños
