PL01.02 Disparities in Lung Cancer Care Across the Population

Abstract

Health disparities: ‘differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of disease, and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups….’ (NIH, 2014).1 Lung cancer, the oncologic scourge of our age, with 2.2 million cases and 1.8 million deaths estimated worldwide in 2020, is the leading cause of cancer death among men in 93 countries, and women in 25 countries. Global aggregate 5 year survival is only 10% to 20% in most countries.2 In the United States (US), aggregate lung cancer incidence rates have been sequentially decreasing, in men since the mid-1980s and in women since the mid-2000s, at a rate of -2.2%/year.