LUNGevity, the nation’s leading lung cancer-focused nonprofit organization, is kicking off Lung Cancer Awareness Month with the launch of its Inhale for Life: Find it Early and Live public service campaign. This powerful campaign features the stories of lung cancer survivors whose cancer was diagnosed at stage I, when it is most treatable, greatly increasing their chance of survival. In fact, these survivors are living normal lives.
Inhale for Life: Find it Early and Live is the fifth annual campaign in LUNGevity’s Inhale for Life educational video and social media-driven series. This installment aims to educate people with a longtime smoking history to find out if they are eligible for a low-dose CT screen, which can find their lung cancer at its earliest stage, when it is most treatable and even curable. Patients who were able to have surgery to remove their lung cancer when it was found early due to screening share their stories and their current active lifestyles.
The videos also explain why it is crucial to support research into new noninvasive, universal early detection tests that will discover all lung cancers, in smokers and nonsmokers alike. The survivors shown who were diagnosed because of unrelated circumstances help drive home the message that lung cancer should not be found by accident.
“Detecting lung cancer early, when it is easiest to treat, can save lives,” says Andrea Ferris, president and CEO of LUNGevity Foundation. “Today, only 18% of lung cancers are diagnosed at an early stage, and many patients are diagnosed when they experience symptoms, when the cancer is most likely in a more advanced stage. Our goal with Inhale for Life: Find it Early and Live is to get eligible patients screened and to push for support for new modes of early detection so that more lung cancer patients will have a chance for a cure.”
The Inhale for Life: Find it Early and Livevideos showcase six lung cancer survivors who were screened for lung cancer or whose cancer was found during screening for unconnected medical issues. Also featured are two renowned medical experts who speak on the importance of early detection in lung cancer: Robert Winn, MD, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center and a member of the LUNGevity Board of Directors, and Avrum Spira, MD, MSCI, global head of the Johnson & Johnson Lung Cancer Initiative, professor of medicine at Boston University, and a member of the LUNGevity Scientific Advisory Board.
The Inhale for Life: Find it Early and Live campaign is supported in part by grants from AstraZeneca, Genentech, Bristol Myers Squibb, Regeneron, and Sanofi Genzyme.
The campaign can be seen at lungevity.org/inhale-for-life-early-detection.
