Deadliest Cancer Getting Smaller Chunk of Research Dollars
December 29th, 2010
Lung cancer is the most deadly form of cancer in the United States, killing about 157,300 people every year — more than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
It is also the nation’s second leading cause of death, second only to heart disease.
And yet lung cancer attracts fewer federal research dollars per death than the other leading forms of cancer demise. Doctors have yet to find a reliable method for screening for lung cancer. And new treatments for lung cancer roll out at a snail’s pace compared with therapies for other cancers.
So why does the top cancer killer attract so little attention?
Largely because people are perceived to have done this to themselves, garnering little public sympathy, said Kay Cofrancesco, director of advocacy relations for the Lung Cancer Alliance, a national nonprofit group dedicated to lung cancer support and advocacy.