Clear Ribbon for Lung Cancer - Symbolic of Invisible Disease: November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month

(NC) You can "Run for the Cure" for breast cancer or wear the sky blue ribbon for prostate cancer but will you be wearing a clear ribbon this November to support the battle against Canada's number one cancer killer - lung cancer? More people die each year from lung cancer than they do from breast, prostate and colorectal cancer combined. Did you know that...?

• In 2004, an estimated 21,700 new cases of lung cancer will be reported in Canada and approximately 18,900 people will die.

• Among women, lung cancer incidence and death rates are on the rise and are three times as high as rates in 1975.

• Lung cancer can strike anyone, even those who don't smoke.

• Only 14 per cent of lung cancer patients will survive five years, compared to 85 per cent of patients with breast cancer.

Despite such grim facts, there is some good news in the fight against lung cancer. Health Canada has recently granted conditional approval of Iressa as monotherapy (third-line therapy) for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients who have failed both prior platinum-based and docetaxel chemotherapy treatments. A notice of compliance with conditions (NOC/c) provides patients with early market access to promising new drugs for diseases that are serious or life threatening, where the new drug appears to provide benefit over available therapy, or as is the case with Iressa where no therapy currently exists.

Iressa is a member of a new type of cancer treatment called targeted therapies. The benefit of targeted therapies is that they attack cancer cells but not healthy cells.

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- News Canada

For more information about lung cancer visit the Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada at www.canceradvocacycoalition.com or Lung Cancer Canada at www.lungcancercanada.ca