United States women still see breast cancer as a bigger killer than lung cancer, despite the fact that lung cancer kills more Americans each year — women and men — than any other cancer.

That’s one of the findings from a new American Lung Association survey of over 1,000 adult US women.

The poll also found that many women may not appreciate the lung cancer risk to nonsmokers. And few were aware of just how deadly lung cancer remains, in a time of major progress against some other cancers.

According to Alana Burns, vice president of the ALA’s Signature Cause Campaign, the poor survival rate may be one reason that lung cancer is not on women’s radar.

“With breast cancer, there are so many survivors out there telling their stories and advocating,” Burns said.

“But more than half of women diagnosed with lung cancer are gone within a year. There is no legion of survivors talking about their experiences.”

In the United States, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, followed by lung cancer. But lung cancer is the top killer.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, lung cancer kills about 38 out of every 100,000 US women each year. The death rate from breast cancer is 22 per 100,000.

But when the ALA survey respondents were given a list of cancers and asked to pick the top killer of women, 51 per cent chose breast cancer. Only 22 per cent chose lung cancer.

“It’s pretty clear that breast cancer gets more press,” said Dr. Subhakar Mutyala, associate director of the Scott & White Cancer Institute in Temple, Texas.

Plus, he said, since there’s routine screening for breast cancer, women and their doctors are talking about the disease.

But unless you’re a smoker, your doctor is probably not going to bring up lung cancer, noted Mutyala, who reviewed the survey findings. And while it is possible to screen for lung cancer, he added, that’s limited to certain high-risk groups.

Right now, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual CT scans for adults aged 55 to 80 who currently smoke or who quit within the past 15 years — and smoked for at least 30 “pack-years.” That means one pack per day for 30 years, or two packs a day for 15 years, for example.

Smokers are not, however, the only people who get lung cancer. About  10 per cent of people diagnosed with the disease never smoked, the ALA states.

But half of the women in the new survey said they were “not concerned” about lung cancer because they’d never smoked. That included 68 per cent of lifelong nonsmokers.

“Many people think of lung cancer as solely a smoker’s disease,” Burns said.

Yet, she added, if lung cancer in nonsmokers were considered its own disease, it would rank among the top-10 cancer killers in the United States.

Burns and Mutyala said people should be aware of the risk factors for lung cancer in nonsmokers.

The top cause is exposure to radon gas, which can become concentrated in homes that are built on soil with natural uranium deposits. Other risk factors include chronic exposure to secondhand smoke or air pollution, and on-the-job exposure to pollutants such as diesel exhaust and asbestos. Researchers have also found gene mutations that play a role in some lung cancers.

-New York Times News Service.