LungBlog

While more than 70 per cent of women survive at least 10 years with breast cancer – and testicular, melanoma and Hodgkin’s disease have 80 per cent 10-year survival rates, only 5 per cent of those with lung, pancreatic or oesophageal cancer survive that long.

Mr Kumar said: “In these three cancers there has been a degree of defeatism. Researchers have said they are not sure they can improve survival so we won’t try. We say there is progress we can make.”

The cancers were often diagnosed late because symptoms were often difficult to distinguish from those due to trivial causes and the organs were deep within the body.

Lung cancer is the second commonest cancer (after breast cancer) and has the highest toll at 34,000 deaths a year. Yet the charity spent £13m on research into lung cancer, less than a third of the £45mn spent on breast cancer research.