Lung Cancer Info  >  FAQs

If you are a patient or family member seeking information on the disease of lung cancer and/or its treatments, please view our Living with a Diagnosis of Lung Cancer educational booklet.

Frequently Asked Questions About Lung Cancer Advocacy

1. Why is there a need for increased awareness of lung cancer?
2. Why do so many people die of lung cancer each year?
3. Are there other reasons - besides lack of funding - as to why there is not more research going on in lung cancer?
4. Don’t lung cancer patients cause their own disease by smoking?
5. Are there really differences in lung cancer between men and women?
6. What specifically does National Lung Cancer Partnership want to do?
   

1. Why is there a need for increased awareness of lung cancer?

Lung cancer kills approximately 160,000 people in the United States each year—more people than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined. It is responsible for over a quarter of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S. each year.

Lung cancer is often perceived as a man’s disease, but in fact it is also an extremely common and lethal cancer in women. In contrast to the mortality (death) rate in men, which began declining more than 20 years ago, women’s lung cancer mortality rates have been rising for decades, only just recently beginning to stabilize.¹ Women often incorrectly perceive breast cancer as a bigger risk to their lives than lung cancer, even though lung cancer kills many more women. Without knowing their risks of lung cancer, women may not take the appropriate measures (e.g. smoking cessation, follow-up of symptoms) needed to diagnose the disease when the cancer is less advanced.

2. Why do so many people die of lung cancer each year?

Lung cancer is a very common disease – approximately 219,000 people each year in the United States will be diagnosed with it. It is also a very lethal disease – roughly 85% of people who are diagnosed with lung cancer will die of it within five years of their initial diagnosis. This is in stark contrast to diseases such as breast and colon cancer, where one-quarter to one-third of all patients will die from their disease within five years. In addition, lung cancer patients tend to be diagnosed at a later stage (with more advanced disease) than do patients with many other types of cancer. For example, more than three-quarters of lung cancer patients are diagnosed after their disease has spread to other parts of their body, compared to one-half of breast cancer patients.

A lack of research funding has slowed progress in developing new treatments for lung cancer. There is considerably less funding available for research on lung cancer than on other types of cancer. In 2007, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimated it spent only $1,415 per lung cancer death compared to $13,991 per breast cancer death, $10,945 per prostate cancer death, and $4,952 per colorectal cancer death. In addition to the NCI, the Department of Defense also funds research for breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers, among other diseases, but it does not fund research into lung cancer, this country’s primary cancer killer.

3. Are there other reasons - besides lack of funding - as to why there is not more research going on in lung cancer?

The future of clinical research in general is reaching a national crisis,^2-3 and this crisis is further compounded in the area of lung cancer. Those researchers who do stay in academic medicine tend to focus on areas of research where funding is available; given the relative lack of funding for lung cancer research, fewer physicians are entering this field. The crisis is even more acute in recruiting and retaining women physicians and scientists.⁴ If we are going to make progress in treating lung cancer, there must be more scientists and physicians – including women - working to understand this disease.

4. Don’t lung cancer patients cause their own disease by smoking?

Roughly 10% to 15% of lung cancer patients have never smoked. That means between 20,000 to 30,000 never-smokers are diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States each year. Because the five-year survival for this disease is so poor, each year in the U.S. more never-smokers die of lung cancer than do patients of leukemia, ovarian cancer, or AIDS. Lung cancer patients often feel ostracized, alone, and without the social support that other cancer patients have.

Many lung cancer patients who have smoked quit smoking years ago. As many as half of all lung cancers in the U.S. occur in former smokers.⁵ Although the risk of developing lung cancer does go down with smoking cessation, a significant risk remains for 20 years or longer after quitting.⁶

Many people who do smoke cigarettes are unjustly blamed for bringing lung cancer upon themselves by “choosing” to smoke. In fact, people rarely choose to begin smoking as mature, educated adults. Instead, people typically begin smoking as teen-agers, when they are in a rebellious time of life, often before they are able to make healthy life-style choices. They are heavily influenced by advertising from the tobacco industry and peer-pressure, and are convinced that they will be able to stop smoking whenever they want to. Unfortunately, when people do try to quit, they often discover that nicotine is as addicting as heroin.

The actions of our government have also promoted smoking. During World War II and the Korean War the United States government gave out free cigarettes to servicemen to help them deal with their lack of comforts, and to help keep them awake during overnight duties. Most lung cancer patients diagnosed today started smoking back in the 1950s and 1960s, before the first Surgeon General’s report detailing the dangers of tobacco, when smoking was socially acceptable.

Lung cancer patients, whether they are smokers, former smokers, or never smokers, often feel stigmatized by their diagnosis, and their interactions with family, friends, and physicians suffer due to this stigma.⁷ Because of the stigma, few family members are willing to speak out. We need to speak out against the disease, not the patients. No one deserves to get lung cancer!

5. Are there really differences in lung cancer between men and women?

There are clear differences between men and women in terms of who gets lung cancer, the type of cancer they contract, and how they respond to treatment, suggesting that there may be differences in how they develop lung cancer.^{8, 9} For example, it is known that never-smokers who develop lung cancer are more likely to be women, that women are more likely to get a sub-type of lung cancer called bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, and that women are more likely than men to respond to a group of drugs that interact with the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR). Taken together, these data suggest that there might be biological differences in the susceptibilities of women to the cancer-causing effects of chemicals in cigarettes and other environmental toxins, and the development of lung cancer. Understanding more about these biological sex differences may prove to be critically important in combating lung cancer in both men and women.

6. What specifically does National Lung Cancer Partnership want to do?

Our goals are to:

• Raise awareness of the deadly impact of lung cancer upon both women and men.

• Increase funding for lung cancer research.

• Support and promote research into sex differences in lung cancer.

• Encourage professionals to enter into and be successful in lung cancer research, treatment and care.

• Educate and empower patients to actively participate in their treatment and care.

References Cited

1. Jemal, A., R.C. Tiwari, T. Murray, A. Ghafoor, A. Samuels, E. Ward, E.J. Feuer, and M.J. Thun, Cancer statistics, 2004. CA Cancer J Clin, 2004. 54(1): p. 8-29.
2. Rosenberg, L., Physician-scientists--endangered and essential. Science, 1999. 283(5400): p. 331-2.
3. Thompson, J.N. and J. Moskowitz, Preventing the extinction of the clinical research ecosystem [published erratum appears in JAMA 1997 aug 6;278(5):388] [see comments]. JAMA, 1997. 278(3): p. 241-5.
4. Council on Graduate Medical Education, Fifth Report: Women and Medicine, Physician education in women's health and women in the physician workforce. US Dept of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Health Resources and Services Administration (DHHS), 1995. July (HRSA-P-DM-95-1).
5. Tong, L., M.R. Spitz, J.J. Fueger, and C.A. Amos, Lung carcinoma in former smokers. Cancer, 1996. 78(5): p. 1004-10.
6. Ebbert, J.O., P. Yang, C.M. Vachon, R.A. Vierkant, J.R. Cerhan, A.R. Folsom, and T.A. Sellers, Lung cancer risk reduction after smoking cessation: Observations from a prospective cohort of women. J Clin Oncol, 2003. 21(5): p. 921-926.
7. Chapple, A., S. Ziebland, and A. McPherson, Stigma, shame, and blame experienced by patients with lung cancer: Qualitative study. BMJ, 2004. 328(7454): p. 1470.
8. Patel, J.D., P.B. Bach, and M.G. Kris, Lung cancer in US women: A contemporary epidemic. JAMA, 2004. 291(14): p. 1763-8.
9. Patel, J.D., Lung cancer in women. J Clin Oncol, 2005. 23(14): p. 3212-8.

Revised 06/09/09