Be aware of, and help stop, the random killer that will claim more than 160,000 lives this year: lung cancer

In a perfect world, lung cancer would not exist. We would not see our parents, our children, our husbands and wives, our friends and neighbors, suffer and die from this disease. We would not need to designate this November, and every November, as National Lung Cancer Awareness month.

But this is not a perfect world. People are diagnosed with lung cancer every day. This year, it is estimated that 226,160 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed. That represents almost 14 percent of all cancer diagnoses. Lung cancer causes more deaths in America – an estimated 160,340 in 2012 – than the next three most common cancers – colon, breast and prostate – combined!