Glimmers of hope in the battle against lung cancer

In July 2011, this newspaper reported on the views of a retired cancer expert in Northern Ireland who said that there had been remarkable progress against the disease in preceding decades.

The oncologist said that while there were still “stubborn” cancers such as the pancreatic type, which had tragically high fatality rates, there had been massive improvements in life expectancy among patients.

Today we report on one of those most feared cancers, the lung variety, which has seen further improved survival rates compared with 10 years ago, from around the time we ran the story about the long-term progress against cancer.

A report from Queen’s University has found that lung cancer rates had decreased slightly among men and increased slightly among women, but survival rates among women improved by 10%.

The prognosis for people diagnosed with lung cancer remains poor, but there is an optimistic narrative to be taken from the overall story of lung cancer and its history.

The stark link between cigarettes and lung cancer was revealed some 70 years ago, in the early 1950s, and this has helped drive down smoking rates around much of the world, which has saved many million of lives.

Thus there is a double reason for hope: a slight increase in life expectancy of people who get the disease, but a slashing in the number of such patients due to better education and information leading to lifestyle changes.

Meanwhile, the Queen’s study also flags up a troubling health issue that has not had much scrutiny since the first lockdown of 2020: delays in diagnosis due to patients staying away from hospital.

There was a 7% drop in such diagnoses that year, and an even more marked drop in early diagnosis.

This is a reminder that while lockdown saved lives by cutting Covid transmission, we do not yet know its cost in terms of impact on NHS treatment of non Covid conditions.

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