Abstract CN04-01: Reducing lung cancer mortality by 50% in the next decade: Is it feasible?

Abstract

Abstract Lung cancer deaths are finally declining in the United States after a nearly century long rise. After a steep increase in cigarette use rates over the first half of the 20th century, smoking prevalence rates started declining from their peak in 1964 and the number of lung cancer deaths followed about 30 years later. Today, less than 20% of adults are current smokers, although there is significant variation from state to state and smoking behavior today, in contrast to 50 years ago, is largely concentrated among the poor and less educated members of society and also among individuals with mental health and substance abuse diagnoses. While some predictions have cigarette consumption dropping to near trivial levels in the US over the next 50 years, others have suggested the rate of decline might be much slower than predicted as the ratio of former to ever smokers has stalled. In other words, while fewer young people are taking up smoking, smoking cessation rates among adult smokers have not changed much in the past decade. While having fewer young people take up smoking means less lung cancer in the long run, in the next decade it means that lung cancer mortality rates will be higher than they might otherwise have to be. This presentation asks the question: Is it feasible to lower lung cancer mortality by 50% in the next decade? The answer to this question is yes, if we want it to make it happen. This presentation describes two complimentary strategies to more rapidly reduce lung cancer mortality in the United States over the next decade. The first strategy includes policies that could realistically be implemented in the next few years to dramatically accelerate a reduction in cigarette consumption. The second strategy focuses on ways to promote lung cancer screening among high risk current and former smokers to change the typical prognosis of lung cancer from one of death sentence to one where lung cancer is detected early enough for cure and improved management. Quite simply, maximizing these two intervention strategies will almost assuredly do more to reduce deaths from lung cancer over the next decade than could possibly be hoped for by investing in high risk biomedical research to try to improve current treatment outcomes, and most likely at a small fraction of the cost. Citation Format: K. Michael Cummings. Reducing lung cancer mortality by 50% in the next decade: Is it feasible? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr CN04-01.