"Every year when Morton Pollner had his checkup he worried that doctors would find something on his lung. For years they didnt. Then his luck ran out. My reaction was Well you smoked for  years. You got away with it for another  years and this is it. I thought it was a death sentence he says. Pollner who lives in Monroe N.Y. was  when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Like many patients his age he didnt expect there would be any effective treatment. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in men and women. And it is mainly a disease of older people. Only about  percent of lung cancer patients are under  and the average age http at diagnosis is about . Older patients are frequently not offered curative treatment like surgery because they and their families and even their doctors often think they wont be able to tolerate it. So they are referred for supportive care to control symptoms rather than surgery to remove the cancer.  But many patients can survive and even thrive after surgery says Dr. Prasad Adusumilli https a thoracic surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He was senior author of a study httpascopubs.orgdoifull.JCO... published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in October. The study looked at more than  patients with Stage  nonsmall cell lung cancer who had surgery to remove their tumor. About  percent of the patients were  years old or older and about  percent were at least . And he found that a surprising number of these older patients did quite well. One year after surgery more people had died from other causes than died from lung cancer. And after five years almost  out of  patients were alive and cancer free. They did well and beat their lung cancer Adusumilli says proving that when it comes to surgery for early stage lung cancer age should not be a limiting factor. This was the case for Morton Pollner who is one of Adusumillis patients. His cancer had not spread and Adusumilli told him there was a good possibility the cancerous tissue could be completely removed and he could go back to leading a normal life. That was seven years ago. Today Pollner is  cancer free and enjoying life. Whatever I get from here on its like gravy he says. Surgery isnt the answer for all older lung cancer patients according to Dr. Len Lichtenfeld httppressroom.cancer.orglenlichtenfeld deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. Patients with heart or other health problems may not be candidates. At the same time he says its important to recognize that patterns of aging have changed over the past two decades. Seventy today is not the same as it was  years ago Lichtenfeld says. Older adults are more functional both physically and mentally than ever before and he says the medical community needs to adjust its thinking about what treatments older cancer patients can tolerate. We shouldnt allow numerical age to be the deciding factor Lichtenfeld says."