e19122 Background: More people die from lung cancer in the United States than any other cancer type, and despite improvements in survival for other cancer types, 5-year lung cancer survival has remained low (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lung Cancer. Available at www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung. Accessed February 04 , 2013; Youlden DR, Cramb SM, Baade PD. The international epidemiology of lung cancer: geographical distribution and secular trends. J Thorac Oncol. 2008; 8(3): 819-31.). This study aimed to describe the outcomes of lung cancer patients in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) population. Methods: A retrospective study of patients diagnosed with lung cancer during the study period of October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2010 was conducted using the Veterans Health Administration datasets. Lung cancer patients were identified using International Classification of Disease 9th Revision Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) diagnosis code 162.xx. Descriptive statistics were calculated as means ± standard deviation (SD) and percentages. Comorbidities were measured for the 1-year baseline period before the disease identification date. Health care costs and utilization were measured for the 1-year follow-up period after the identification date. Results: In patients identified with lung cancer (n=73,150), common comorbidities included hypertension (n=21,377, 29.22%), chronic airway obstruction (n=14,305, 19.56%), abnormal findings on radiological and other lung field examination (n=12,437, 17.00%), and diabetes (n=11,569, 15.82%). Nearly half of all lung cancer patients had follow-up inpatient visits (46.47%), which translated to an average inpatient cost of $21,420 annually per patient. Nearly every patient studied had at least one follow-up outpatient visit (99.11%), and the average cost per patient totaled $12,986 annually ($12,110 for outpatient office and $411 for outpatient ER service costs). Conclusions: Inpatient and outpatient visits result in considerable health care costs for veteran lung cancer patients. Comorbid conditions are also relatively frequent in this population. Further research could elucidate economic outcomes for lung cancer patients by comorbidity severity.