The overall five-year survival rate of lung cancer is 14 percent.
Lung cancer causes more cancer deaths than colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers combined.
By the time lung cancer causes visible symptoms such as cough, weight loss, and bloody sputum it is often too advanced to be curable. Although five-year survival for Stage I lung cancer can be 70 percent or higher, routine screening to detect early stage lung cancer is not currently recommended by the American Cancer Society or the National Institute of Health. The greatest risk factor for developing lung cancer is the smoking of cigarettes and related tobacco products 87 percent of lung cancers are smoking related. A person s risk of lung cancer decreases over time after quitting smoking. CT Low dose screening CT has been performed for several years in Japan and is now being introduced in the United States.