At Duke, patients with lung cancer receive coordinated care from our experienced team of specialists.

Our multidisciplinary approach ensures that each patient benefits from the combined expertise of our caregivers, who represent all the oncology subspecialties -- medical oncology, thoracic surgery, radiation oncology, pulmonary medicine, pathology, epidemiology, and genetics.

New patients are seen in Duke’s multispecialty lung cancer clinic, where pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, and other caregivers are all available in one setting.

Together, these specialists discuss the best way to combine services and treatments to develop the optimal plan of care for each patient.

Our extended team, including thoracic radiologists and lung cancer pathologists, also meets weekly to discuss treatment for patients with particularly unusual and complex cases.

Lung Cancer Facts

• Each year more than 170,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with lung cancer.
• Since 1987, more women have died each year from lung cancer than breast cancer.
• More people die from lung cancer than from breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, and pancreatic cancer combined.
• The five-year survival rate for all stages of lung cancer combined is 15 percent. However, the survival rate is almost 50 percent when localized. New treatment approaches for localized lung cancer will improve these statistics.
• Cigarette smoking is the biggest risk factor in the development of lung cancer.
• Smoking in the teenage years causes permanent genetic changes in the lungs and forever increases the risk of lung cancer -- even if the smoker quits.