Edward R. Murrow: Understanding Lung Cancer

The reporter who covered the story that caught him

Edward R. Murrow built modern broadcast news. He reported from London during the Blitz, and his 1954 program on Senator Joseph McCarthy is still taught as a turning point in television.

One of the subjects his See It Now team covered was the link between smoking and lung cancer. He was, by the account of the college that carries his name at Washington State University, a lifelong chain smoker, estimated at 60 to 65 cigarettes a day.

In October 1963 his left lung was removed because of cancer. He resigned as director of the United States Information Agency as his health failed, retired to his farm in Pawling, New York, and died there on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. North Carolina's state history office, which put up a marker at his birthplace, records the cause plainly: he died of lung cancer.

What the sources establish

Two things, and they are enough. Murrow had cancer that cost him a lung in 1963, and lung cancer is recorded as what killed him in 1965.

No source we checked gives the type of lung cancer, its stage, or the treatment he had after surgery. Those categories barely existed in their modern form at the time. We do not supply them here.

What lung cancer is

Lung cancer starts in the tissue of the lungs. The National Cancer Institute divides it into two main groups.

Non-small cell lung cancer is the common one. It tends to grow more slowly and is the type most likely to be treated with surgery when it is caught early.

Small cell lung cancer is less common and grows faster. It has usually spread by the time it is found, so it is treated with drugs and radiation rather than an operation.

Smoking causes most lung cancer. It is not the only cause. People who never smoked develop it too, from radon gas in buildings, from workplace exposures such as asbestos, from air pollution, and sometimes from nothing anyone can name.

Taking out a lung, then and now

Removing an entire lung is called a pneumonectomy. It was the standard cancer operation in Murrow's day, and it is a large thing to live without.

Surgery today is usually smaller. When a tumor is caught early, surgeons often remove only the affected lobe, or a smaller wedge of tissue, and often through small cuts rather than an open chest. The aim is the same tumor control with more breathing left over.

Drug treatment has changed even more. Some tumors carry specific gene changes that a targeted drug can act on. Others respond to immunotherapy, which helps the immune system recognize the cancer. Neither existed in 1963, and both start with a biopsy that names what the tumor is.

Who gets screened

Lung cancer is often quiet until it is advanced, which is why screening matters more here than symptom-watching.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a yearly low-dose CT scan for adults aged 50 to 80 who have a 20 pack-year smoking history and who still smoke or quit within the past 15 years. A pack-year is a pack a day for a year. Screening stops after 15 years without smoking, or when other health problems mean surgery would not be possible.

Screening is not free of harm. Scans find spots that turn out to be nothing, and chasing them means more tests. That is why the decision belongs in a conversation with a clinician rather than in a rule of thumb.

What quitting still does

Quitting lowers the risk of lung cancer at every age, including for people who have smoked for decades. It does not return the risk to that of a never-smoker, and it is still the single most useful thing a smoker can do for these odds.

What this does not mean

• A heavy smoking history does not make lung cancer certain, and never smoking does not rule it out.
• Murrow's course in the 1960s says nothing about outcomes now. The tests and drugs are different.
• Being eligible for screening is not a diagnosis. Most scans find nothing serious.
• Nothing here is medical advice or a reason to change your own care.

Sources

• Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University: About Edward R. Murrow
• North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Edward R. Murrow 1908-1965 (J-92)
• National Cancer Institute: Lung Cancer—Patient Version
• U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: Lung Cancer Screening

How this page was made

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. This article has not been reviewed by a healthcare professional unless a named reviewer is specifically shown. Cancer Explained is published by the National Cancer Information Foundation as a nonprofit-oriented public-interest education project. It is not a diagnostic service, does not recommend treatments, and is not for emergencies.

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