They call it "The Invisible Cancer."

Lung cancer often gets pushed to the back of the line by misconceptions from High Point Enterprise, NC via Acquire Media NewsEdge They call it "The Invisible Cancer." It develops and grows quietly, stealthily -- invisibly -- typically causing no noticeable symptoms until it's way too late. Only about 15 percent of those who are diagnosed with the invisible cancer survive even five years. Which begs the obvious question: How can a disease that kills more than 160,000 Americans a year -- making it the deadliest of all cancers -- still be invisible? Shouldn't it be visible by now? Theoretically, yes, lung cancer -- the invisible cancer -- should be more than a mere blip on America's cancer radar. Other forms of the disease -- breast cancer for women, prostate cancer for men, just to name a couple -- tend to grab the headlines, the public sympathy and, not coincidentally, the bulk of research dollars. Meanwhile, those who are diagnosed with lung cancer can scarcely organize a public awareness rally -- much less actively campaign for research funding -- because most of them don't live long enough. And for those who survive, it's tough to garner public support because they can't get past the stigma of lung cancer, which most Americans largely associate with cigarette smoking. "When you have breast cancer or any other type, people swarm around you, they hug you, they say "Oh, I'm so sorry,'" says Charlotte Hummer, a 73-year-old lung cancer survivor who lives in the Davidson County town of Arcadia. "But when you've got lung cancer, it's like, "Oh, you're a smoker, so you deserve it,' and that's a bunch of bull crap." Pardon the coarse language, but Hummer is exactly right about smokers. "Anyone can get lung cancer -- you don't have to be a smoker," says Dr. Jennifer Garst, a Durham lung cancer specialist who is the founding chairwoman of the N.C. Lung Cancer Partnership, a lung cancer advocacy organization. "Smoking is the leading risk factor -- along with exposure to secondhand smoke -- but about 15 percent of those who are diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked." That's true of survivor Maria Teague, a 40-year-old High Point woman who was diagnosed two years ago with non-small cell adenocarcinoma, or Stage 3 lung cancer. It was also true of David Pardo, also of High Point, who died in January -- at age 45 -- after a two-year battle against lung cancer. Yet for Teague and Pardo, almost everyone who learned of their lung cancer automatically assumed they were smokers. "Up until the very end, the day before David died, doctors were asking, "How long has he smoked?'" recalls Pardo's widow, Anita. "Even the doctors were asking him that. So now, I try to tell everybody that lung cancer is not what you think it is." * * * * Lung cancer may not be what most people think it is, but one thing about the disease is certain -- it kills. In 1971, when then-President Richard Nixon declared his "War on Cancer" with the enactment of the National Cancer Act, lung cancer was the No. 1 cancer killer. Nearly four decades later, though many battles have been won in the war, lung cancer remains the deadliest cancer, accounting for one of every three cancer deaths, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance. An average of 439 people die of lung cancer every day. The disease kills more people than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers combined. It kills more than three times as many men as prostate cancer and more than twice as many women as breast cancer. The biggest problem, it seems -- the reason for all those deaths -- is the lack of early detection. Only 16 percent of lung cancer is being diagnosed at its earliest and most curable stage, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance. In more than half of the patients diagnosed, the cancer has already metastasized -- spread to other parts of the body -- and many of those patients die within a year of diagnosis. "We don't catch the disease early," Garst says. "We do not have an FDA-approved screening test for lung cancer, and with no screening test, about 70 percent of those with lung cancer are diagnosed with an incurable disease. That's one of the main reasons the survival rate is so low." Would early detection really make that much of a difference? For the answer to that, turn your eyes toward the N.C. House of Representatives, where the House majority leader -- Rep. Hugh Holliman of Lexington -- was just elected to his fifth term in office. Holliman is a two-time lung cancer survivor, having beaten the disease nearly a decade ago and again last year. "Both of mine were caught very, very early, so I had surgery and didn't even need chemo or radiation," Holliman says. "Lung cancer is no different from any other cancer -- if you catch it very early, you're going to be in much better shape." Holliman has anecdotal evidence of that fact. His sister, Nancy Griffin -- whose lung cancer was not detected early -- died from the disease in 1999. * * * * It's the human faces of lung cancer that will make the disease more visible. It's faces such as that of Charlotte Hummer, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer -- the worst diagnosis possible -- in both lungs. Diagnosed in April 2001, Hummer pressed her doctor to find out how much time she had left. "He said, "You might make it until Christmas,'" she recalls. "Well, Christmas hasn't come yet. This will be my eighth year of celebrating Christmas since I was diagnosed. And the doctor who diagnosed me ... was killed in an automobile accident four years ago. He's gone, and I'm still here." Hummer, of course, is one of the lucky ones. So is Maria Teague, the High Point wife and mother -- and lifelong nonsmoker -- who underwent surgery, four rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments for her Stage 3 cancer. The aggressive treatments sapped her strength and claimed her hair, but they worked. Today, Teague is doing wonderfully -- her most recent checkup a couple of weeks ago confirmed that -- but she still thinks about the future. "Not many days go by that I don't think about lung cancer and the possibility of it returning," Teague says. "But you have to come to terms with that, and I've done that now. I have a lot of faith in God -- I'm on His plan." * * * * America needs more survivors such as Hummer and Teague. Unfortunately, there are still too many David Pardo stories. Pardo, a husband and father of two -- and another lifelong nonsmoker -- battled lung cancer for two years before losing the fight on Jan. 19. Positive and upbeat to the very end, Pardo -- a substance-abuse counselor -- continued working until a week before his death. Pardo had participated in a clinical trial, but it didn't help him much. "We asked about more research studies," recalls his widow, Anita, "but they said there weren't any others because there's not enough funding for lung cancer." And therein lies the reason that lung cancer remains the invisible cancer, according to advocates. "Lung cancer has been deprived of research dollars," Garst says. "...We need an early detection test -- that's where a lot of our research needs to be concentrated." According to the Lung Cancer Alliance, the National Cancer Institute's budget for fiscal year 2007 was $4.8 billion, but lung cancer research received less than 5 percent of that total. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year earmarked $201 million for breast and cervical cancer initiatives, $13.9 million for prostate cancer and $14.4 million for colon cancer. But for lung cancer initiatives? Nothing. "I think it has a lot to do with the stigma, because people think only smokers get lung cancer and they bring it on themselves," says Amy Cipau, president of the N.C. Lung Cancer Partnership. "That's why we call lung cancer the invisible cancer, because you just don't hear enough about it, and people don't know the truth about it. You hear so much about breast cancer and there's so much sympathy for breast cancer -- and that's a good thing -- but we just don't have that same awareness and compassion for lung cancer, and that's what we're trying to change." Copyright (c) 2008, High Point Enterprise, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Copyright 2008 Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) - All rights reserved