LUNG CANCER

Contemporary Issues in Health Wellbeing Social Care

Contemporary Issues in Health Wellbeing Social Care

Introduction

In the United Kingdom, the life expectancy at birth has been steadily increasing, and it has reached 81.29 years in women and 76.96 years in men. However, this increasing trend is positive as there are some essential inequalities present in UK, such as the gap between socioeconomic groups (high and low) is in increasing in terms of life expectancy in United States. During 1972-76, this gap for men reported to be 5.5 years while in 1997-99, it is accounted to about 7.4 years. On the other hand, the gap increased from 5.3 years to 5.7 years during 1972-76 and 1997-99, respectively (Henoch, Bergman & Danielson, 2008, pp.709-715). At the global platform, rates of cancer survival has increased in 90s; whereas, United Kingdom failed to fill the gap with the European nations, along with best outcomes of cancer. As a reaction to this upward trend, the NHS Cancer Plan (2000) was distributed and as this time rates of mortality have been changing like other European and other developed countries.

Since 2009, the second most common cancer is lung cancer in UK, reporting to about 13 percent of all cases. Particularly, it accounted 14 percent of all cancer cases in men while 11 percent of all new cancer cases in women, during 2009. In UK, there were about 41,428 lung cancer cases (new); 44% (18,387) in females and 56% (23,041) in males, providing a female: male ratio of over 10:12, the ratio of female: male for cases of lung cancer was about 10:39; however, has sharply fallen as there was a sharp decline in incidence of lung cancer among males because of a significant decrease in smoking among men in UK after World War II (info.cancerresearchuk.org).

This assignment investigates lung cancer as it is one of the contemporary wellbeing related issue in the health care and/or social care. In addition, critically assess local, national and international strategies to prevent lung cancer.

Discussion

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is a form of cancer develops in tissues of the lungs typically in the lining air passages of cells. Lung cancer is the contemporary issue faced by healthcare and is the second most prevailing issue in both men and women. Lung cancer is mainly of two types: SCLC (Small cell lung cancer), and NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer). Approximately 85-95% of lung cancer incidences are of NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer); however, 10-15% of all lung cancer incidences are of SCLC (small cell lung cancer). Both types are diagnosed depended on how the cells look under a microscope (Abdel-Rahman, 2009, pp.115-124).

Risk Factors develop Lung Cancer

There are several factors that give rise to the contemporary healthcare issue of lung cancer, such as tobacco smoke. Approximately 80 percent of deaths due to lung cancer are because of smoking. Moreover, if a person does not smoke but breathe in smoke of other, known as environmental tobacco smoke or secondhand smoke may increases the risk of lung ...