LungLife CFO, David Anderson, Dispels Myths about Lung Cancer

Transcript:

Hello, my name is David Anderson, CFO at Lung Life. At LungLife, our purpose is to be a driving force in the early detection of lung cancer. There are two big myths about lung cancer. Firstly, that if detected, the odds of long term survival are low, and secondly, it's a cancer that only affects people who have smoked. Neither is true. If lung cancer can be detected early, the best therapy is surgery with curative intent, which can afford long term survival for many. And there is also ongoing research actively pursuing additional treatment modalities aimed at eliminating someone's lung cancer when caught early.

The problem is currently around 80% of lung cancers are detected at later stages when effective curative action is limited. As for prevalence, whilst a smoking history does increase the risk of developing lung cancer, increasingly the prevalence of the disease is seen in a much wider demographic. Studies from researchers at UT Southwestern and Vanderbilt University have indicated an increasing proportion of lung cancer in never smokers, with corroborating research from the US CDC reflecting a higher proportion of never smokers occurring among women with lung cancer compared with men across all age groups, races and ethnicities.

In pursuit of our purpose to be a driving force in the early detection of lung cancer, our vision is to invert the 20:80 ratio such that in years to come, at least 80 percent of lung cancer cases are detected early.