Fed: Hundreds die of lung cancer unnecessarily: Cancer Council

AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2001
Fed: Hundreds die of lung cancer unnecessarily: Cancer Council

By Anthony Stavrinos

SYDNEY, Dec 10 AAP - Poor care for lung cancer sufferers and academic egos hindering
collaborative research were contributing to hundreds of unnecessary deaths, experts said
today.

Australian lung cancer survival rates were lower than the US because of the haphazard
responses to the disease by local doctors, according to Cancer Council of NSW chief executive
officer Dr Andrew Penman.

Victorian lung cancer expert, Professor David Ball said collaborative research efforts
were being hampered by the egos of some academics, reluctant to part with the prestige
associated with authorship of reports on their own studies.

Australia-wide, as few as 10 per cent of lung cancer patients survive beyond five years,
compared to about 15 per cent in the US.

Dr Penman said lung cancer was typically diagnosed at around the same late stage in
Australia and the US, but what happened after diagnosis was crucial.

"Survival rates in Australia are not as good as the best overseas," Dr Penman told journalists.

"We're better than many countries but we estimate that if we were as good as the best
it would be around 250 lives saved a year in Australia. That's worth having."

He said even a small improvement in the process of care for patients, through the introduction
of national guidelines, would translate to lives saved.

A prevailing pessimism surrounding lung cancer affected both doctors and patients,
who were generally lifelong smokers. Those patients were perhaps less inclined to push
aggressively for the best care than someone with breast cancer, he said.

"It's also a disease of lower social classes, the powerless, and perhaps they have
less influence in the health care system," he said.

"We need to do more about making their patient journey easier."

Speaking at a Cancer Council of NSW workshop in Sydney today, Professor Ball, from
the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in Victoria said international research into lung
cancer was a "dog's breakfast".

He said a recent Canadian study into world lung cancer research around the world showed
there were no common themes and the big questions were not being asked.

"No one group of specialists can say that they've got all the answers for lung cancer.

You have to have a team approach," he told AAP.

"I think it's causing a lot of confusion, not only for doctors but for patients."

Professor Ball said ambitious academics would always try to get their name in publications,
and this made group efforts difficult.

"There are a lot of individuals that are under pressure to run their own studies," he said.

"In a big collaborative group, your right to authorship disappears."

Asked whether some academics researching solutions to the problem of lung cancer, were
contributing to it and also putting peoples lives at risk, Professor Ball said: "I'm sad
to say that I think that's probably true".

But he said the problem in Australia was compounded by the lack of direct federal government
funding, whereas in the US, the UK and Canada, governments directly funded collaborative
research groups on lung cancer.

According to a new report launched today and covering three decades in NSW, lung cancer
was the third most common cancer after breast and prostate cancer, and the leading cause
of cancer death.

Lung cancer rates in women had also doubled over the three decades whereas the disease
was declining in men.

Between 1973 and 1998, just over 49,000 people died from lung cancer in NSW.

AAP as/arb/cjh/sb

KEYWORD: LUNG NIGHTLEAD

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