Just the facts, ma'am. #lungcancer

• Lung Cancer is the Number One Cancer Killer.
  
• It kills more people than breast, prostate, colon, liver, melanoma, and kidney cancers combined.
  
• 80 percent of newly diagnosed Lung Cancer patients either never smoked or quit smoking decades ago.
  
• Lung Cancer surpassed breast cancer as the #1 cancer killer of women in 1987.
  
• Over 450 people die a day of Lung Cancer in the U.S. That’s 19 an hour.
  
• You CAN get Lung Cancer even if you never smoke.
  
• Every three minutes another person is diagnosed with Lung Cancer.
  
• For every nine dollars spent on breast cancer, one dollar is spent on Lung Cancer in the U.S.
  
• The overall survival rate for Lung Cancer is still 15.5%.The same as it was over 40 years ago.  (Breast cancer has advanced to an 89% survival rate. Prostate cancer is now at 99%.)
• In 2009, an estimated 1.5 million new worldwide Lung Cancer cases were expected with a projected 1.35 million deaths.
  
• The under funding of Lung Cancer research has kept its survival rate as low as it was in 1971.
  
• Lung Cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women, accounting for 30 percent of all cancer deaths.
  
• Lung Cancer will not end or be cured if everyone quit smoking right now. We do hope, though, that if you do smoke you can find a way to quit.
  
• The majority of Lung Cancer patients are being diagnosed so late that they will die within one year.
  
• National Cancer Institute’s estimated new cases of Lung Cancer (non-small cell and small cell combined) in the United States in 2009: 219, 440 
• National Cancer Institute’s estimated deaths from Lung Cancer (non-small cell and small cell combined) in the United States in 2009:  159, 390
  
• Lung cancer is, by far, the most common fatal cancer in men (30%), followed by prostate (9%), and colon & rectum (9%). In women, lung (26%), breast (15%), and colon & rectum (9%) are the leading sites of cancer death.
  
• Lung cancer is currently the most common cause of cancer death in women, with the death rate more than twice what it was 30 years ago.
  
• 53 percent of Lung Cancer in women is NOT attributed to smoking.

Sources: Global Cancer Facts and Figures, 2009–American Cancer Society, Lung Cancer Alliance, National Cancer Institute, SEER (Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results, Douglas Arenberg, MD, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, World Health Organization, Nature Review/ Sophie Sun/Joan Schiller/Adi F. Gazdar