Lung cancer in Australia

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death of cancer in Australian men and the third leading cause in Australian women. Efforts are being made to reduce the incidence of this disease by smoking‐cessation programmes and improved industrial hygiene, and these measures need to be encouraged strongly by all sectors of the community. On a population basis, insufficient evidence is available to justify screening procedures for the early detection of lung cancer in “at‐risk” groups. Cure is possible by surgical resection in early cases. Improvements in therapeutic results with traditional cancer treatments largely have reached a plateau, but a number of newer therapies, and combinations of standard therapies, currently are being evaluated. Of particular interest is concurrent radiotherapy and chemotherapy in localized non‐small‐cell lung cancer; laser “debulking” in conjunction with radiotherapy in non‐small‐cell lung cancer, and biological response‐modifying agents in non‐small‐cell and small‐cell lung cancer. It is important that data be collected adequately to define epidemiological changes and to evaluate treatment results (including repeat bronchoscopy, to assess local control of tumour), and that the quality of life is recorded and reported in the evaluation process. Finally, phase‐Ill studies in lung‐cancer treatments require adequate numbers of subjects to enable meaningful conclusions to be reached. In most instances, this requires cooperation among centres to achieve objectives within a reasonable study period.