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THE IRISH CANCER Society has raised concerns over the number of lung cancer patients who are being diagnosed with the disease when it is in its advanced stages.
It has also described as “worrying” a trend which has seen a significant number of patients receive their diagnoses in the country’s emergency departments.
According to the charity, around half of the 2,500 Irish people who are diagnosed with lung cancer every year discover that the disease is in its advanced stages.
When lung cancer is diagnosed at stage I or II, two-thirds of patients survive at least a year, compared with just one-quarter who are diagnosed at a later stage.
“Unfortunately, a late stage lung cancer diagnosis can mean treatment options are very limited and survival rates are much lower,” says Aoife McNamara of the Irish Cancer Society.
Recent data also showed that one in four patients who present with lung cancer are first diagnosed in Ireland’s A&E departments.
The statistics were released as the Irish Cancer Society launches Lung Cancer Awareness Month today, with the charity targeting symptom awareness and early detection.
More people die of lung cancer in Ireland than any other form of the disease, but the charity hopes that creating more awareness of the symptoms will give patients a better chance of early diagnosis and survival.
“There’s a worrying trend developing where patients are entering A&E with symptoms to be told for the first time that they have cancer,” McNamara said, adding that older lung cancer patients and those from deprived areas considered to be most at risk.
“This trend doesn’t need to continue; being lung aware and conscious of symptoms can mean being diagnosed earlier.
“If you have a persistent cough, difficulty breathing or are wheezing, it’s really important that you speak with your doctor.”
The Irish Cancer Society also urged people to take its free online lung health checker, which also includes a printable summary that can be taken to a GP.
The charity said that those who suffered from a persistent cough or difficulty breathing did not necessarily have lung cancer, but said the symptoms were indicators that something may be wrong and should not be ignored.
It added that anyone with concerns about the health of their lungs should visit their GP.
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Many people who cannot afford a GP visit use the Emergency Department as an alternative. Additionally, those individuals may assume that the persistent cough is simply a side-effect of smoking and only become concerned when they reach the stage of unexplained weight loss.
@Rathminder: my mother passed away almost a year ago due to lung cancer. A year before being diagnosed in A&E she visited the GP several times (about 4 times) and she was only prescribed antibiotics regardless the doctor knew she was a smoker and ignoring the number of visits. My mother was never what you call it a hypochondriac, so Mu family and I were very when her “chest infections” turned out to be a stage III lung cancer. It was healer broken.
@Rathminder: I’m a little confused, any GPs I’ve ever visited charge between €55 and €70, every time I’ve been to A&E it’s been €100, I can understand someone low on funds dismissing the idea of going to the GP until it’s so bad that they have to go to A&E but I wouldn’t say that is using A&E as an alternative.
@Diarmuid Hunt: The ER is required to treat you whether or not you have cash in hand. The GP has the alternative of not adding you to his practice until you are a paid and established patient.
I happened to be a patient in my local A&E department just over a year ago, a nurse who came into my cubicle was a little teary eyed and I made some stupid joke. She explained that she’d just discovered her fourth patient that week with stage 4 cancer and how this is supposed to be an unusual thing in an A&E department but was increasingly becoming the norm. The things you remember…
@Arch Angel: happened to my father a year ago. He went in with a cough that he had since Christmas on January 22. They discovered a shadow on his right lung. He was dead two months later to the day. He never smoked and rarely drank and was very healthy.
No matter how fallible screening programmes are they pick up a lot of cancers before they go beyond stage 1. I hope the ambulance chasing in this country doesn’t compromise them or the intrioduction of new ones. No other country in the world awarding compensation anything near what is being awarded here for false negatives.
@Seamus G: too many in the law trade waiting for their piece of the cake with free legal aid and ambulance chasers. No luck in that money
@Seamus G: Actually Dr Scally said if ERRORS made in cervical screening when “there are SUFFICIENT signs of ABNORMALITY but person MISSED it” then “a mechanism should be put in place to compensate a person due to an ERROR which has potential SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES”(Women have died and are dying so your comment re “ambulance chasing” is disgusting!)He said this at Joint Committee on Health-Scoping Inquiry into the Cervical Check Screening Programme: Discussion 10/10/18
@Nuala Mc Namara: ‘If’??? This is a screening programme not a diagnositc test. Your comment conflating death with the screening is disgusting and has not been upheld in any review yet if you understood the way screening works. Yes there are false negatives and this is a fallability of the process. You are preempting a review which has not yet reported.
Re the ambulance chasing the awarda here are OBSCENE and exponentially higher than in UK for same situations.Let me repeat loud and clear -AMBULANCE CHASING of the highest order is now happenign in the screening programmes and until a judge gives a reasoned award as opposed to a weak political system buckling the awards will close down the programmes and you will see plenty of more cancer presentations then.
@Seamus G: I 100%support screening&vaccinations!
Quotes from Dr Scally at Joint Committee on Health when he was asked about false negatives,etc!
Dr Scally(1)”if woman has abnormality no cells may be present in slide so finding will be cells are normal,”2)”alternatively cells may be present but person reading the slide may not spot abnormality or it may be viewed as not significant”
3)”alternatively it could be a plain ERROR where THERE ARE SUFFICIENT SIGNS of ABNORMALITY but the person MISSED it”.It’s the latter affecting women like Emma/Vicky,etc!
Cervical screening is screening for abnormalities,when abnormalities found woman is sent for further investigations eg colposcopy.If errors made as described byDrScally then the woman will miss the early opportunity for further investigations.
@Seamus G: Vicky Phelan and all those other women are ambulance chasers now are you for real!!!how dare you
My dad passed away in 2016. Had a persistent chesty cough for over a year that although he had a number of X-rays and tests done which showed up NOTHING and he kinda just fobbed it off then. Subsequently unconnected flank pain on his left side led to more tests . Turns out he died of stage IV Neuroendocrine Carcinoma symptoms of which include a persistent cough. It was too late when he was diagnosed to save him and he passed away 5 weeks post diagnosis. Don’t ignore a persistent cough…. sometimes it’s our bodies way of telling us something is not quite right in an otherwise seemingly healthy person.
A seemingly healthy man can go from coughing up blood, just the once, to death in the space of just over 3 months! This is lung cancer at it’s worst and this is our reality!
It is frightening to read that even if diagnosed with stage 1 or stage 11 lung cancer that two thirds of patients may only live up to a year,please all smokers, think about this and consider ending smoking , horrendous diagnosis.
@Honeybee: my dad passed in 2017 from lung cancer&wasnt a smoker.diagnosed at stage 4.heartbreaking.
@Glenn k ☘☘☘: I am so sorry to hear of your Dads passing Glenn , I suppose most of us associate lung cancer with smoking but of course this is not always the case . I lost my mam to pancreatic cancer in Jan 2016 so I know only too well the loss you are suffering and heartbreak is exactly the right word,going through life collecting memories and searching for echoes of those we dearly loved .
@Glenn k ☘☘☘: happened to my non smoking father last year too. It’s a devastating disease
@Glenn k ☘☘☘: happened to my non smoking father last year too. It’s a devastating disease
@Glenn k ☘☘☘: happened to my non smoking father last year too. It’s a devastating disease
@Honeybee: Lung cancer can also be a secondary cancer like my late mother,(actually in lining of her lung),her primary cancer not diagnosed beforehand.Its so hard nursing& eventually losing a loved one to this cruel disease.
So any symptoms out of the ordinary eg :(even persistent hiccups),rapid weight loss, persistent pain,fatigue, breathlessness,wheeze,etc should be checked out.Any family history of cancer noted.
@Nuala Mc Namara: It’s shocking Nuala,reading the comments, how many of us are losing parents to cancer and it seems with a late diagnosis in so many cases. As you say, a cruel illness,I was unaware of lung cancer as a secondary cancer although my own mother developed bone cancer from her original diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, I guess life will never have the same brightness after you lose your mam.
@Honeybee: My beloved mother,like many others wouldn’t have complained about any symptoms(of any illness)&that has to change.People need to be aware to pay attention to any unusual symptoms/symptoms not going away& inform their doctor asap&be clear and firm about these symptoms.
Time I spent caring for my mother was precious&sure,i feel her presence near from time to time.
Wish it was only one type of cancer we had to worry about, but its not, Way to many types overall, including, Brain, Throat, Gullet, Stomach, Lung, Bowel, Prostrate, Breast, to mention just some of the many increasing types of fatal cancers out there, Where are they all coming from, What are the causes, Why is there so much terminal cancer types within our environment / Communities. Why is our Air, Food And Water so polluted with so many man made cancer causing toxins, and Why are we continuing to allow it to happen and say nothing, Wake Up, we are all being poisoned systematically by our own governments, who stand back and do nothing to protect our environment, and allow all of the above to be compromised big time and in all in the name of profits, and GREED;
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