Lung cancer checks boost survival rate

It seems odd, but Linda Currin may be lucky to have had stomach cancer.

Otherwise her subsequent lung cancer may have been diagnosed much later - the fate of so many who find out they have the disease only after it is too late for a cure.

As it is, the 54-year-old is clear of both her cancers.

She is speaking out in a lung cancer awareness campaign, in the hope that more lives can be saved.

The Northern Cancer Network - whose members include cancer specialists, patient representatives and the Cancer Society - is running radio and newspaper advertisements to explain the warning signs of lung cancer and encourage people to have checks early.

Miss Currin, of Whangaparaoa, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2005.

She had surgery to remove her stomach, and chemotherapy - and was then periodically checked by CT scan.

Occasionally she would cough and she had had shortness of breath for several years, but neither seemed bad enough to consult a doctor.

One of the CT scans detected problems in her left lung, in December 2008.

She quit tobacco within weeks, having previously relapsed from 16 attempts to give up smoking 10 to 15 cigarettes a day. In April last year, a quarter of her left lung was removed.

"I was lucky," Miss Currin, a Maori, said after the launch of the awareness campaign at Manurewa Marae yesterday.

"If you have a persistent cough, something that goes on for a long time, go and get it checked out."

Cancer network spokesman Gary Thompson said it had been difficult to find a Maori or Pacific lung cancer survivor for the campaign - "there are so few of them."

Clinical director Dr Richard Sullivan said that when lung cancer was detected early, the survival rate was 80 per cent.

But in Auckland and Northland the rate was 10 per cent, mainly because so many people left it too late to seek medical help.

He had lost patients who could have survived if their disease had been detected earlier.

"These patients should still have decades of life ahead, but instead left behind friends and family much too early. In many cases, they could have been saved if they had seen their doctor when they first noticed symptoms."

Maori and Pacific people are more likely than other groups to die from lung cancer. For Maori women, the death rate in 2006 was 3.6 times the non-Maori rate.

For the whole population, it was the commonest cause of death from cancer in 2006, when it killed 1457 people.

Dr Sullivan said smoking was the disease's leading risk factor, estimated to account for 80 per cent of cases.

But an increasing number of cases occurred in people who had smoked little or never.

SURVIVAL RATES
Potential: 80 per cent of lung cancer patients could survive long term, if disease detected early.

Reality: 10 per cent are alive five years after diagnosis in Northland/Auckland.

SYMPTOMS
* Persistent, worsening cough.
* Coughing up excessive phlegm with blood.
* Chest pain with coughing or breathing.
* Recurring chest infections.