Kathy Griffin shocked fans on Monday after announcing she has been diagnosed with lung cancer and would undergoing surgery to have part of her lungs removed. …
Kathy Griffin shocked fans on Monday after announcing she has been diagnosed with lung cancer and would undergoing surgery to have part of her lungs removed. “The doctors are very optimistic as it is stage one and contained to my left lung,” Griffin,60, shared in a statement on social media. But the comedian noted in her announcement that she was diagnosed with the disease “even though I’ve never smoked.” Experts warn that people who do not smoke cigarettes or other tobacco products are at risk of developing lung cancer. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 40,000 lung cancers each year “happen in people who never smoked or smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime.” If you’re a nonsmoker, here’s what you need to know about lung cancer risks: Yes, but developing the disease is significantly less likely than if you do smoke cigarettes or other tobacco products. Smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than nonsmokers, according to the CDC. But Dr. David Carbone, director of the James Thoracic Oncology Center at Ohio State University, told USA TODAY that people who do not smoke tobacco products can still be at risk of developing lung cancer. “Among lung cancer circles, what we say is if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer,” he said. Ahmedin Jemal, the American Cancer Society’s senior vice president of surveillance and health equity science, said that exposure to secondhand smoke, or breathing in smoke from other people’s use of tobacco products, is “one of the leading causes” of lung cancer among nonsmokers.
