The question on Quora was:
Is it true that only 5 percent of smokers get lung cancer?
My answer was:
It is not true that only 5 percent of smokers get lung cancer.
Source: IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans (http://monographs.iarc.f
If a smoker quits by age fifty, then they still have a lifetime risk of over 5% of lung cancer alone. Someone who continues smoking past that age has a much higher chance of lung cancer (up to 15% plus).
On top of that, of course, smoking increases the risk of many other kinds of cancer besides lung cancer, though not quite as much; so you’d probably multiply these risks by another 50% or so to account for the increased risk of bladder cancer, kidney cancer, esophagus cancer, etc. So let’s say maybe 7-8% chance of smoking-related cancers for our hypothetical smoker who quit at 50, and maybe 20-25% for someone who smoked through his 70s.
And that’s all on the background of non-smoking-related cancers.
