Lung Cancer Research Highlights

See If the Quit2Heal Clinical Trial Is for You

If you smoke and have been diagnosed with cancer in the last 24 months, you may be eligible to participate in a research study that will test a smartphone app to help you quit smoking. 

Learn more at: Quit2Heal.org

Outlook for Lung Cancer Is More Promising Than Ever Before

As the Senior Scientific Director of Surveillance Research at the American Cancer Society (ACS), Rebecca Siegel, MPH, analyzes data on lung cancer each year as part of the Cancer Facts & Figures report. 

In our news story about the report, we said:

The outlook is more promising than ever for lung cancer at all stages of disease. In recent years, more people with lung cancer are being diagnosed when the cancer is at an early stage and living longer as a result.

The rate of localized-stage disease diagnosis increased by 4.5% yearly from 2014 to 2018, while there were steep declines in advanced disease diagnoses. The result was an overall increase in 3-year survival rates. In 2004, 21 out of 100 people diagnosed with lung cancer were living 3 years after their diagnosis. By 2018, that number had risen to 31 out of 100 people.

Increased survival is also largely due to improvements in:

• Tests to diagnose lung cancer
• Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS)
• Updates to pathologic staging
• Drugs that target the most common gene mutations in lung cancer

“Improved lung cancer outcomes may also reflect increased access to care through the Affordable Care Act (ACA),” says Siegel, lead author of Cancer Statistics, 2022. “Plus, the ACS and USPSTF first recommended screening for lung cancer in 2013, so screening — even with low rates — still could have helped increase the diagnosis of localized-stage disease,” she says.

Key lung cancer statistics in the US include: 

Estimated New Cases and Deaths

• A estimated 236,740 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2022. 
• An estimated 130,180 people will die from lung cancer in 2022. That's more than for any other type of cancer—more than breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancers combined. Lung cancer causes 2.5 times more deaths than colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of death from cancer in the US.

Trends in Incidence and Mortality

• From 2009 to 2018, the rates of new lung cancer cases dropped almost 3% a year in men and almost 1.5% a year in women. 
• Differences between men and women reflect historical patterns of tobacco use. Women began smoking in large numbers many years later than men, and women were slower to quit. However, smoking patterns do not appear to explain the higher lung cancer rates being reported in women compared with men born around the 1960s.
• Trends in cancer death rates are the best measure of progress against cancer. Lung cancer death rates declined by 56% since 1990 in men and 32% since 2002 in women.
• Improvements in lung cancer mortality are due to declines in smoking and advances in early detection and treatment, mostly for non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC).

Variation by State of Residence

• Compared to other types of cancer, lung cancer has the most striking variation by state. 
• In Kentucky, the death rate from lung cancer is more than 3 times higher than in Utah. This difference reflects the historically much higher prevalence of smoking in Kentucky. During 2019, 1 in 4 adult residents of Kentucky were current smokers, compared with 1 in 10 adult residents of Utah. 
• State tobacco control policies can have a large impact on smoking rates.

Related to Smoking

• Anyone can get lung cancer. Yet people who smoke are about 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer than people who don't smoke, and about 80% of deaths from lung cancer are caused by smoking. Both the amount and how long someone smokes increase risk of dying from lung cancer.
• People who quit smoking, regardless of age, increase their longevity. Those who quit by age 30 live an average of 10 years longer than if they had continued to smoke.

Not Related to Smoking

• Second-hand smoke causes almost 3% of new cases of lung cancer and is expected to cause about 3% of deaths from it in 2022.
• After smoking, the next leading cause of lung cancer is exposure to radon gas, which is released from soil and can build up indoors.
• Nonsmoking-related deaths from lung cancer would rank as the 8^th leading cause of death from cancer if they were classified separately.