My friend is 18 and just found out he has lung cancer. He’s going in for more tests to confirm what stage it is in but it can’t be that far along I’m guessing with how young he is. Do you have any information as to the survival rate of those in the preliminary stages of lung cancer? What are the chances of eradicating it?

49 % of people diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer live for at least five years after diagnosis.

It’s difficult to determine the chances of eradicating it because overall survival rates don’t specify whether cancer survivors are still undergoing treatment at five years or if they’ve become cancer-free (achieved remission). Other types of survival rates that give more specific information include:

1) Disease-free survival rate.
2) Progression-free survival rate.

I wasn’t able to find much information with these two survival rates, but hopefully someone else can add to this answer. You might be able to find this data by searching for specific treatment regimens and their effectiveness. At the National Cancer Institute (NIH), they calculate these values for clinical trials.

More than likely, your friend is fine so long as he doesn’t smoke the things himself or shotgun with his grandmother. The bigger concern is smelling like cigarettes all the time.

http://cancerfriends.net/lung-cancer/

If are in the medical industry or have been through this please make sure to tell me in your answer.
Also she has never been a drinker or smoker.

You didnt hear this from me, but marijuana will help with the symptoms, especially the nausa. She obviously cant smoke it, but she can bake them into brownies. Otherwise have her MAKE her doctor get her on some painkiller of some kind like vicodin. Good luck and I hope she makes it.

Malignancies are far more complicated than the average person thinks.
A confluence of factors leads to a malignant clone of genetically altered cells which have the capacity to grow without normal human body restraints. The person must first be susceptible to genetic alterations caused by carcinogenic chemicals – of which there are dozens in tobacco / cigarette smoke. Then the immune system must drop its guard and allow that clone to grow. Over many years a lung carcinoma will grow until it is large enough to be seen on any x-rays or scans. Lung cancers must be even larger to cause any symptoms. Symptoms occur only in the very last, most advanced stages of the disease. By then it is too late. The barn door has long been open – all the horses have gone – and they have had baby horses already – before you find out.

I like the answer by "serengeti_lion"
and "katiefrehner" who said it was a matter of luck.
It is indeed a matter of luck.

In the Canadian study I often quote – 1 in 6 men who were chronic smokers developed lung cancers – so it is a slow form of Russian roulette.
Male smokers – lifetime risk of lung cancer 1 in 6
Female smokers – risk of lung cancer is 1 in 9
Risk of lung cancer in non-smokers is 1 in 77
Can J Public Health. 1994 Nov-Dec;85(6):385-8.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211

But that means 5 of 6 smokers did not develop lung cancers. They "got away with it" – though many died prematurely with emphysema or cardiovascular disease. I would guess about half of people who are chronic smokers "get away with it."

The trouble is this – if you do develop a smoking related disease – the treatment is very expensive and a burden on everyone. And that disease could have been prevented if you had not smoked.

Should people who choose to smoke not be treated when they fall into the "unlucky" group? They made there own mistake, and they lost.
Same thing for people who choose to eat their way into obesity with all of those inherent medical risks. These are societal, moral, ethical concerns with the skyrocketing cost of medical care. There are so many more medications we can use to try to eek out a few extra weeks or extra months for people who develop lung cancers, but it would be much better to avoid ~90% of these in the first place by not becoming addicted to smoking cigarettes.

We can easily spend a million dollars on each person who develops a smoking related disease in the U.S. today. Yes, I know that medical care is overpriced – but why are we spending so much money to attempt to save or prolong the lives of people who asked for their own disease by smoking cigarettes year after year? I estimate that the average person I saw with lung cancer over my 20 years as a cancer specialist doctor had smoked half a million cigarettes. I saw hundreds of people with lung cancers in North Carolina – USA. Almost every one was a chronic cigarette smoker. Medical oncologists – despite all of the expensive new treatments we have – almost always fail in fighting advanced lung cancers. Most oncologists would rather they were prevented in the first place.

Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer deaths in the U.S. At least 31% of all cancer deaths in the USA are caused by smoking. Each one of those people is very, very expensive to treat – almost always in a losing battle. Is cigarette smoking really necessary? Can humans live without smoking cigarettes?