Sharing Hope – Why We Campaign

For decades, the facts regarding lung cancer have been sobering:

• Anyone can get lung cancer.
• Nearly 50-60% of lung cancers are diagnosed in people who never smoked or in former smokers.
• Lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the number #1 cancer killer for women in 1987.
• Lung cancer kills more people than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney, and melanoma cancer combined.
• The 5 year survival rate for lung cancer is just 16%—a rate that has changed very little since the 1970’s. 

But, now there is HOPE! 

Our national campaign to change the face of lung cancer gives us a front line view of the state of lung cancer research and treatment in America.  This is an exciting period in the history of lung cancer treatment. The use of state-of-the-art lung cancer screening techniques is reducing mortality rates by 20% in some patient groups while cutting-edge team-based, multidisciplinary treatment procedures are improving the quality of life for lung cancer patients across the country.  And thanks to advances in molecular tumor mutation testing, researchers and treating physicians are developing effective personal lung cancer treatments designed to extend and, ultimately, save lives.  This revolutionary treatment approach is starting to yield results:  Research have already developed targeted drugs aimed at two of the mutations known to cause lung cancer—drugs that are extending the lives of some patients by as much as 10 months.