Once again I hear the excitement in the headlines – cancer death rates are dropping.

But for me the news feels bittersweet. Reading through the report elicited feelings reminiscent of those I felt when I once attended a baby shower and a funeral on the same day.

First the expectant news – and it is exciting. Cancer death rates in the U.S. dropped 2% for men during the period from 2001 to 2006, and 1.5% for women from 2002 to 2006. This represents a decline in the death rate from the 4 major cancers in both men and women, except…

The somber news. Lung cancer deaths in women continue to increase, though they appear to be stabilizing.

Death rates for cancer are continuing a slow but steady decline in the U.S., due mainly to improved efforts at early detection, better treatments, and smoking cessation, the American Cancer Society (ACS) says in a new report.

Death rates for all cancers combined decreased 2% per year from 2001 to 2006 in males and 1.5% annually from 2002 to 2006 in females, the ACS says.

The report says lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers in men and lung, breast, and colorectal cancers in women continue to be the most common fatal cancers, accounting for about half of the total cancer deaths among men and women.

The ACS estimates that prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers will account for 52% of all newly diagnosed cases in 2010 in men. In women, breast, lung, and colorectal cancers will account for 52% of new diagnoses this year.

A 65-year-old man with inoperable lung cancer has become the first lung cancer patient in India to receive stereotactic radiosurgery, a promising new approach for treating this disease.  Doctors at Yashoda Hospital in Hyderabad were able to deliver the treatment using RapidArc technology from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR).

Several recent studies* have shown that lung cancer responds favorably to radiosurgery, which involves delivering the full dose in as little as one to five treatments. With the Varian RapidArc technology each radiosurgery session could be performed in just ten minutes, including patient setup and imaging, with the actual ‘beam-on’ time being as little as three minutes.

Decision Resources, one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, forecasts that the non-small-cell lung cancer drug market in Brazil will reach $240 million by 2014. Factors fuelling this growth include a slight but steady annual increase in the number of incident cases, greater uptake of higher-priced brands of chemotherapy, targeted regimens and maintenance treatment (all in the advanced setting) and modest uptake of novel targeted agents.

“Through the Brazilian national health system, virtually all diagnosed patients have access to treatment. However, a small but lucrative segment of patients with private health insurance largely drives the use of premium-priced novel chemotherapy and targeted agents,” stated Decision Resources’ Analyst Janie Cox, Ph.D. “During our 2009 – 2014 study period of Brazil’s non-small-cell lung cancer drug market, collective sales of targeted therapies such as Roche’s Avastin and Tarceva, and AstraZeneca’s emerging agent Iressa, are expected to grow 21 percent annually while sales of Eli Lilly’s novel chemotherapy agent, Alimta, are expected to grow 15 percent annually.”

CAMPAIGNERS descended on York Hospital and Homebase to raise awareness of the asbestos-related cancer Mesothelioma.

The York Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer Support marked Action Mesothelioma Day yesterday by holding a stall at the hospital as part of its campaign for better care and support for people diagnosed with the illness A spokesman said mesothelioma was a terminal chest cancer which developed between 15 and 60 years after exposure to asbestos, and killed one person every five hours in the UK, but only six per cent of people knew what the disease was.

Lung cancer patients are likely to suffer significant stigma due to the disease’s link to smoking, according to a survey published today.

The research, which was carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of The Global Lung Cancer Coalition, investigated attitudes surrounding the disease, which is the biggest cancer killer worldwide.

Researchers found that between 10% and 29% of people in the countries surveyed admitted they felt less sympathetic towards lung cancer sufferers because of its known association with smoking cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Okayama University Hospital said Friday it has succeeded in the world’s first autotransplantation operation using cooling conservation techniques to remove a man’s lung, extract cancer from it and put it back in the body.

The operation can protect a cancer patient from breathing failure and improve the quality of life.

The hospital said the operation was performed last month on a man in his 60s from Hiroshima Prefecture who was suffering from advanced cancer in the right lung and other parts.

It decided to perform the autotransplantation operation because it would not cause rejection or breathing problems from simply removing the lung.

In the operation, a conservation solution for transplantation was injected into the extracted right lung and cancer was removed after a cooling treatment was applied to last for eight hours. The lung was put back into the body after no cancer was confirmed in the lung.

The patient recovered his vital capacity up to about 70 percent and can play golf and do other exercise, according to the hospital.

Over the last three years, we have learned a great deal about lung cancer advocacy and have been honored to support several organizations that are doing great work.  We are extremely grateful to all of our supporters who have donated to our cause.  It is because of your generosity that we have been able to raise awareness and to fund research initiatives.

While we have funded several excellent organizations and research initiatives during our first three years, our board of directors has decided that we can do the most good for the cause by focusing on one research initiative.  Rather than spreading our financial commitments across various lung cancer projects, channeling our funds to one specific initiative will enable your precious donations to go much further.

Cancer stem cells have enticed scientists because of the potential to provide more durable and widespread cancer cures by identifying and targeting the tumor’s most voracious cells. Now, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and their colleagues have identified cancer stem cells in a model of the most common form of human lung cancer and, more significantly, have found that the cancer stem cells may vary from tumor to tumor, depending upon the tumor’s genetic signature.

“Our study shows the cancer stem cell hypothesis is true in some lung cancers,” said senior author Carla Kim, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston and the department of genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS). “It also shows, from one lung cancer to another, the cancer stem cells are not the same.”

Cancer stem cells are a subset of cancer cells believed to elude conventional treatments and eventually regenerate a tumor. Experimentally, they show up as cells that can be extracted from a tumor and transplanted to form a new tumor, from which the same tumor-propagating cells can again be extracted and transplanted with the same result. According to Kim, this is the first serial transplantation study to identify lung cancer tumor-propagating cells.

Dear Family & Friends,

As many of you know, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3A lung cancer just a little over a year ago. Being an otherwise healthy woman, her diagnosis came as a shock to all of us. After all, we had always thought lung cancer was a “smokers disease” and simply couldn’t happen to someone like my mom, who had NEVER smoked. Luckily, she is now in remission after removal of half her lung & four months of chemo. To celebrate we are going to “break our stride for lung cancer” by walking in the Jog for Jill San Francisco, a 5k race/walk to raise money for the Bonnie J. Addario, A Breath Away From The Cure, Foundation! We invite all of you to celebrate with us by either joining our team, or joining our fundraising efforts. We shot low with a goal of $1,000 because this is a first for us, but would really like to beat that goal! Please follow the link below to either join our team or make a donation: