Lung Cancer Facts
- 425 people die from lung cancer every day
- Lung cancer has the highest number of annual cancer deaths, but only receives $2,488 per death in funding
- Lung cancer is leading cause of cancer deaths in every ethnic group
- Lung cancer kills twice as many women as breast cancer every year (and has since 1987)
- Lung cancer kill more women than breast, cervical, and uterine cancers combined
- The five year survival rate for breast cancer is 86%, prostate cancer 99%, colon cancer 66%. For lung cancer it is 16%. The rate for lung cancer has not changed since the 1970s
- Nearly 80% of new lung cancer cases are in former and never smokers
- If never smokers with lung cancer was a separate category it would be the sixth leading cause of cancer death
- Lung cancer kills more people every year than the next four cancer killers combined
- Over 25,000 women who never smoked will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year
- Lung cancer receives the least research funding of all major cancers. In 2009 lung cancer received $1,438 per each lung cancer death. By contrast, for example, breast cancer received $28,313
- Among people who have never smoked women appear more likely than men to develop lung cancer
- Lung cancer causes 28% of all cancer deaths
- There are fewer lung cancer advocates because of the stigma attached to lung cancer and because most people are diagnosed too late
- Besides smoking other risk factors for lung cancer include radon, asbestos, depleted uranium used in weapons, beryllium, fuel exhaust, and exposure to agent orange
- African-American men are 37% more likely to develop lung cancer than white men and 22% more likely to die from it, even though white and black men smoke at the same rate
- Nearly 75% of Americans can not identify the leading cause of cancer death
- Only 7% of Americans know that lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer death in women (49% thought it was breast cancer)
