Voices of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer in the country, killing more than 160,000 people a year. Yet the disease remains low on the list of cancer funding priorities. In 2006, the National Cancer Institute spent $1,518 for each new case of lung cancer and $1,630 for each lung cancer death. By comparison, the agency spent $13,452 per death on breast cancer, which takes 41,000 lives annually.

Patients with lung cancer are well aware of the disparity in spending and sympathy, an issue addressed in the latest Patient Voices series by my colleague Karen Barrow.

“Because lung cancer is associated with smoking, there’s a stigma that makes it a much less sympathetic disease,” said Dr. Lisa Woody of Guilford, Conn., who was diagnosed last year with late-stage lung cancer.

Part of the problem is that lung cancer is often so deadly, patients don’t have the opportunity to become activists for their disease, said Jerrold Dash, 35, a nonsmoker who received a double lung transplant after developing the illness.

“A lot of lung cancer survivors don’t make it past five years, so there aren’t many voices to speak up like the other cancers,” Mr. Dash said. “I find myself always having to answer the questions: Did you smoke? How long did you smoke? Did you work in a coal mine? Every answer I give them is no.”