Looking for volunteers in the Midlands Area to help me organize a Free To Breathe 5K Lung Cancer Awareness Walk...

I'm looking for fellow volunteers/advocates that may be interested in helping me organize a Free To Breathe Lung Cancer 5K Awareness Walk in Columbia. Possibly Saturday, November 14, 2009 at the Riverfront Park in downtown Columbia. (November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month)

Everyday is still a struggle, since losing my mother in 2007. My faith, family, and close friends keep me going. My dream is to one day bring a state chapter of the National Lung Cancer Partnership here to South Carolina, to support survivors and caregivers, as well as, raise money for much needed research.

The National Lung Cancer Partnership is a group of leading doctors, researchers, patient advocates, and lung cancer survivors who are working together to improve treatments for lung cancer patients. They raise research dollars through their Free To Breathe campaign, a 5K fundraising awareness walk.

You can find more information here:

Free To Breathe - Fundraising for Lung Cancer Research and Awareness

The National Lung Cancer Partnership

Our neighboring state of North Carolina started the first state chapter in 2006 and have many events planned for this year. I'd love to one day do the same here.

Please consider helping me.

While I Breathe, I Hope...for a CURE for Lung Cancer!

Angie B. Derrick

You can send me a message here, or at scagainstlungcancer@gmail.com

Dr. Joan Schiller, National Lung Cancer Partnership President, was nominated to receive the Lynn Kotsiantos Lifetime Achievement Award

Congratulations!

Dr. Joan Schiller, Partnership President, was nominated to receive the Lynn Kotsiantos Lifetime Achievement Award by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago (RHAMC). The award is made every year in honor of Lynn, a young mother who died from lung cancer.

Dr. Schiller will accept the award at RHAMC's May 7th Inspiration benefit for women's lung health in Chicago, IL.

Read more about Dr. Schiller, the National Lung Cancer Partnership's President here.

Spring issue of CR magazine reports: The High Costs of Cancer Mortality

A new analysis helps put research funding into perspective
By Hannah Hoag

...new studies found that at least 25 percent of cancer’s costs could be attributed to lung cancer. In 2008, an estimated 161,840 people died of the disease in the U.S., far more than died of any other cancer. The researchers further calculated that if lung cancer mortality rates declined by 1 percent annually, the value of life lost in 2020 due to lung cancer would drop from a projected $433 billion to $355 billion. A 4 percent annual decline in these mortality rates would put the estimated value of life lost to lung cancer in 2020 at $192 billion.

“The issue with lung cancer is that we are so naive about what we really know,” says Regina Vidaver, the executive director of the National Lung Cancer Partnership. “We need more knowledge in every single aspect, certainly in understanding [cell] signaling pathways and where they go wrong in cancer initiation and drug-resistance development.”

Even so, Laurie Fenton Ambrose, the president and chief executive officer of the Lung Cancer Alliance, is optimistic that a 1 percent annual decline in mortality is possible with additional funding for lung cancer research, including efforts aimed at finding cancers earlier. “Most cancers that have seen improvements are due to a more robust mechanism to detect their cancers early,” she says.

Read more.

The New York Times: Voices of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer in the country, killing more than 160,000 people a year. Yet the disease remains low on the list of cancer funding priorities. In 2006, the National Cancer Institute spent $1,518 for each new case of lung cancer and $1,630 for each lung cancer death. By comparison, the agency spent $13,452 per death on breast cancer, which takes 41,000 lives annually.

Read more.