Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Approximately 50% of the people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked or are former smokers.
Lung cancer accounts for approximately 29% of all cancer deaths.
Lung cancer kills more Americans each year than breast, prostate, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers combined.
Lung cancer kills more than three times as many men each year than prostate cancer.
Lung cancer kills more women each year than breast, ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers combined. In 2007, an estimated 213,380 people will be newly diagnosed with lung cancer, and an estimated 160,390 people will die of lung cancer. An estimated 89,510 of these deaths will be men and an estimated 70,880 will be women.
Lung cancer kills 84% of newly diagnosed patients within five years. The survival rate is 49% for cases detected when the disease is localized to the lung, but only 16% of lung cancers are diagnosed that early. More than 7% of American men and women will be diagnosed with lung cancer in the course of their lifetime. In 2007, approximately $1,633 will be spent on research per lung cancer death, compared with: - $13,471 per breast cancer death
- $11,298 per prostate cancer death
- $4,774 per colorectal cancer death
Since 2001, the LUNGevity Foundation has committed to co-funding more than $4 millionin innovative lung cancer research projects at the foremost cancer programs in America.
Sources:
Cancer Facts & Figures 2007, American Cancer Society, Inc., p.4, pp.13-16
Fact Book (2007), National Cancer Institute, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding)
Kurie JM, Spitz MR, Hong WK: Lung cancer chemoprevention: Targeting former rather than current smokers. Cancer Prevent Intl 2:55-64, 1995.
Pass, Harvey I. et al. Lung Cancer Principles and Practice, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2000. |
