The studies are funded by grants from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation's Women's Health Education Program, established in 1994 to support initiatives that help define and achieve optimal health for women around the world. There are approximately 80,000 new cases and 70,000 deaths yearly from lung cancer among women in the U.S., with a survival rate of just 14 percent for lung cancer compared with 84 percent for breast cancer. Lung cancer is difficult to diagnose in its early stages when intervention could greatly improve survival and cure rates.
Lung cancer is one of the major health threats facing American women today.
Unfortunately, it's a health problem that has not received enough attention. Although treating lung cancer in its earliest stages results in greatly improved survival and cure rates, there are currently no acceptable ways to screen and discover patients with early malignant forms of the disease. Since the early 1990s, while the number of men diagnosed with lung cancer has leveled off, women continue to be diagnosed with the disease in increasing numbers. Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia is conducting a study that will examine why the increase in lung cancer in women is occurring and seek to devise effective early detection programs. Preliminary data suggest that certain genes make it possible for the body to activate carcinogens and that a variation from a normal gene occur more frequently in women who undergo surgery for lung cancer than in their male counterpart.