A brief history of lung cancer in Canada: Care, contributions and challenges

Abstract

For over a century, lung cancer has been both the most common and the most lethal cancer in Canada, due to high populational tobacco exposure and other risk factors. Canada has significantly advanced the knowledge and treatment of lung cancer, as evidenced by important contributions to lung cancer screening, surgery, radiotherapy, systemic therapy, palliative and supportive care. There remain ongoing challenges to the provision of optimal lung cancer care in Canada, including: a gender gap in lung cancer rates and potential years of life lost, diagnostic and care inequity for Indigenous and other underrepresented populations, relatively low funding for lung cancer research, complex drug approval processes, restrictive funding structures for new treatments, poor access to palliative care and persistent stigma surrounding cigarette smoking and nicotine addiction. This paper highlights the significant Canadian contributions to the field of lung cancer, current challenges and future directions.

Keywords:

• SCLC
• NSCLC
• Canada
• tobacco
• smoking

Author contributions

S. Lam, P. Wheatley-Price and S. Mercier were responsible for the conceptualization of the manuscript. S. Mercier and P. Wheatley-Price were responsible for the methodology and project administration. S. Mercier was responsible for investigation and writing of the original draft. P. Wheatley-Price, S. Lam, A. Bezjak, C. Butts and A.J.E. Seely were responsible for the resources. P. Wheatley-Price, S. Lam, A. Bezjak, C. Butts, A.J.E. Seely and S. Mercier were responsible for the review and editing of the manuscript. S. Mercier was responsible for the visualization of the project. The work was supervised by P. Wheatley-Price.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.