$10.5 million in new funding was recently approved by Congress for lung cancer research, according to an announcement from the Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA). The new funding will directly impact those in the military dealing with the disease.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States; it kills more people than any other major cancer. It is a particularly deadly form of cancer because it only presents with symptoms in advanced, terminal stages. As a result, most early-stage lung cancer patients do not even know they have the disease, allowing it to progress unnoticed.
The LCA is an organization committed to saving lives and accelerating research that can help those living with lung cancer or for those at risk of developing the disease. It provides support through professional assistance, referrals, and other information services to lung cancer patients, as well as to those that can be at risk. LCA is also responsible for several national awareness campaigns to emphasize the importance of lung cancer screening and to inform the community about risk and prevention for the disease.
Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, the LCA president and CEO, highlighted that $89.5 million in funding has been donated to date to the Lung Cancer Research Program, which was established as part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program in 2008 and funded through the Department of Defense.
Fenton-Ambrose said in a press release: “We made the case to Congress that military men and women and veterans are at higher risk for lung cancer than the civilian population and that a cutting edge, mulit-faceted research program funded by DOD and directed at lung cancer would benefit them as well as the civilian population since lung cancer was the leading cancer killer in both.”
[adrotate group=”3″]
In the first five years of the project, more than 100 projects were funded. The awards for 2014 are currently under review and about $10.5 million are designated to support projects in 2015.
The goal and the mission is to support and combine research from many and different disciplines and use it for risk assessment, diagnosis, early detection, prevention, and to develop treatments that can control and eventually cure lung cancer.