Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, and it is estimated that smoking is the principle cause of about 90% of lung cancer in men and almost 80% in women. Smoking also can contribute to cancer of the voicebox (larynx), mouth and throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas, cervix, and stomach, and acute myeloid leukemia.In the United States in 2007 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), 109,643 men and 93,893 women were told they had lung cancer, and 88,329 men and 70,354 women died from it.Among men, black men were diagnosed with lung cancer most often, followed by white, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic men. Overall, 80.5 out of every 100,000 men were told they had lung cancer in 2007.Among women, white women had the most new cases of lung cancer, followed by black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic women. Overall, 54.5 out of every 100,000 women were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007.When a person has lung cancer, cells in the lungs grow out of control. More people die from lung cancer than from any other kind of cancer. More women die each year of lung cancer than of breast cancer.Smoking causes most, but not all lung cancer. The more you smoke and thelonger you smoke, the more likely you are to have lung cancer.There are two kinds of lung cancer, small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Each kind of lung cancer grows and spreads in different ways and is treated differently.Lung cancer may spread to the lymph nodes or other tissues in the chest, including the lung opposite to where it originated. It may also spread to other organs of the body, such as the bones, brain, or liver. When cancer spreads from its original location in the lung to another part of the body such as the brain, it is called metastatic lung cancer, not brain cancer. Doctors sometimes call this distant disease.