In general – the 5-year lung cancer survival rates for patients in the United Kingdom have slowly been improving. Recent data released by the Public Health England's National Cancer Intelligence Network – recently said that near twice as many lung cancer patients lived over 12 months (2011 figures) than those who were diagnosed with lung cancer in 1990.

Early diagnosis and improved treatments are seen to be behind these new figures – it was explained. And, although lung cancer accidents in men have been seen to be on the decline – those in women have risen. Since the 1970s, lung cancer diagnosed in women has been on the increase by around 73%, while those in men during the same period have decreased by 47% (mainly due to the different smoking trends between men and women [women are smoking more these days]).

Although there has been an improvement in both early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, it is still the number-1 killer in the UK, and the second most common cancer diagnosed after breast cancer. However, Dr Mick Peake, of the National Cancer Intelligence Network disclosed the following figures:

• 17% of 1990 lung cancer patients were still alive one-year after being first diagnosed with the disease (compared with 29% of men, and 33% of women in 2010). However, there seemed to be little change in the overall 5-year survival rate that still hovers around the 10% -11% figure.
• Smoking is still considered to be the main culprit that kills around 28,000 of the 35,000 that die every year in the UK due to lung cancer.

Apart from the early detection of the disease, one of the main improvements for the short-term one-year figures appears due to the improvement in treatments, such as biological therapies that have been designed to help stop the metastasis (spread) of cancer cells , and newly developed techniques that allow for cancer cells to be frozen – cryotherapy.

Treatments most often depend upon the stage at which the disease was diagnosed in a patient, together with other factors too. For example: age, gender, health, and patient history, all being important factors that help decide which treatment may be more viable (each individual will be accessed on a one-by-one basis, as what may work for one, may not work for another [general guidelines will apply]).

Dr Mick Peake, from the National Cancer Intelligence Network, said: "This report shows that we are gradually making inroads into improving the survival rates of this common cancer; within a year of diagnosis. "

It was also commented by Nick Ormiston-Smith, Cancer Research UK's head of statistics, that "It's great news that lung cancer in men has fallen by more than a third since the early 1990s."

He further went on to talk about the trends in lung cancer incidence rates reflecting past trends in cigarette smoking, where many men actually quit smoking during the 1950s and onwards, which in his words, said "we are now seeing the positive impact of that, but unfortunately this smoking fall did not occur for women until later, etc. "

Although, one-year survival rates are now approaching those of other countries, where previously – historically they had shown better results, smoking by youngsters is still seen to be a problem (better awareness among the young should be a priority).

However, a recent campaign encouraging "anyone" who had a coughing more than 3-days to get it checked-out, was credited with picking-up more than 700 extra cases of the disease ([2012] that was compared with cases picked -up during a similar campaign during 2011).