Kathryn Joosten, who plays the crotchety Karen McCluskey in Desperate Housewives, is battling a recurrence of lung cancer, it was confirmed today.

Joosten's publicist, Thomas DeLorenzo, said a spot on the left lung was detected during a recent physical.

He said the 69-year-old actress started smoking when she was 16 but quit after her first lung cancer diagnosis in 2001.

Joosten wants to alter the perceptions that people with lung cancer did it to themselves. She said that stigma combined with denial that it kills as many as 450 people every day "creates an environment in which no diagnostics or treatments can be developed."

Joosten also appeared on The West Wing.