Quitting and Risk Reduction

The graphic below illustrates the risk of an individual who smoked two-packs per day and quit at age 50.

^{* (CPD stands for cigarettes per day)}

These curves show the personal estimated current risk of lung cancer and what the risk of developing lung cancer in future years will be, depending upon whether one continues to smoke or quits now.

In this example, at age 50 the risk of lung cancer is approximately 100 out of 100,000 or 0.1% per year or 1% during the next 10 years if the individual quits smoking, and will stay at approximately 1% during the next decade for a cumulative risk of 2%.

If, however, he or she continues to smoke, the risk rises to greater than 0.4%/year at age 60 and to 0.8% per year at age 70. The bottom line is that the 50 year old smoker in question can reduce personal cumulative risk of lung cancer from 10-12% to 2% by quitting smoking now.