LUNG CANCER FACTS

Survival

Lung cancer has the lowest 5-year survival rate of the other most common cancers: only 18% (compared to prostate at 99%, breast at 90%, and colorectal 65%) (3).
Lung cancer diagnosed and treated at an early stage has a much higher survival rate, but most cases are not diagnosed until later stages (3).
Early detection, by low-dose CT screening, can decrease lung cancer mortality by 14%-20% among high-risk populations (6,7).

Mortality

Nearly 155,000 lives are lost annually (1).
More than the next 3 deadliest cancers combined (colorectal cancer 50,630, pancreatic cancer 44,330, breast cancer 41,400) – it accounts for 25% of all cancer deaths (1).
Lung cancer kills almost twice as many women as breast cancer and more than three times as many men as prostate cancer (2).

Causes

Smoking isn’t the only cause of lung cancer. Other known causes include exposure to secondhand smoke, air pollution, radon, and asbestos (8).
Major prospective studies support the relationship between particle pollution and lung cancer (9).

Funding

Although lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the world, it's the most underfunded cancer (10, 11).

Incidents

1 in 15 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime—1 in 14 men and 1 in 17 women (4).
27 people will be diagnosed each hour (1).
Only 16% of people will be diagnosed in the earliest stage, when the disease is most treatable (3).
Radon causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year, making it the second leading cause of lung cancer death (5).

Sources
1 https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html//common.html
2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File 1999-2014 Series 20 No. 2T, 2016.
3 http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/lungb.html
4 http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2012/results_merged/sect_15_lung_bronchus.pdf Tables 15.18-15.20
5 EPA: Health Risk of Radon https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon

6 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Screening for Lung Cancer: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement. AHRQ Publication No. 13-05196-EF-3. http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf13/lungcan/lungcanfinalrs.htm

7 The National Lung Screening Trial Team. Reduced Lung-Cancer Mortality with Low-Dose Computed Tomographic Screening. N Eng J Med 2011; 365-395-409. doi.10.1056/NEJMoa1102873. Aug 4, 2011. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1102873#t=article
8 Alberg, AJ and Samet, J. Epidemiology of Lung Cancer. Chest, January 2003; 123:21S–49S.
9 The Lancet Oncology, “Air pollution and lung cancer incidence in 17 European cohorts: prospective analyses from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE),” July 2013.

10 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funding FY2016: report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx (accessed March 27, 2018).

11 Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs Funding FY16: cdmrp.army.mil (accessed March 27, 2018).