Lung cancer is one of the most deadly cancers. Battle against the lung cancer is battle against time. How might we reduce the delays and lags in going to the doctor, diagnosing, and treating lung cancer?

Background

Cancer is one of the humanity’s big challenges. Slowly we are grasping the different ways to control, treat and even cure different types of cancer. There are huge medical advancements being developed every year and seems like humanity is winning the battle eventually.

But as we all know, battle against cancer is a battle against time. This is especially true regarding lung cancer. Lung cancer is the common cause for cancer related deaths in men and second most common in women. Globally out of the 1.8 million yearly cases 1.6 million resulted in death.

One of the key requirements to control and treat lung cancer is to recognize it early enough. The further the lung cancer develops, the harder it is to control and treat. There are many factors outside the medical treatment that affects the time it takes to diagnose cancer.

Lung cancer is also often misdiagnosed because the symptoms are so general. After all, most of the patients with respiratory distress and cough do not have cancer but less dramatic illnesses. The patients might visit the hospitals many, many times before the lung cancer is diagnosed.

One really big problem is that people don’t want to go to the doctor. Especially in rural areas people are often postponing the visit to the doctor as much as they possibly can. This creates time for the lung cancer to develop and grow and pushes disease over the limit of no return.

There are also taboos regarding cancer in general and therefore unwillingness to talk about the topic or symptoms.

Challenge

There are already cancer awareness campaigns for different types of cancers and as stated before, great advancements in the medical treatment. But how might we reduce the delays and lags in going to the doctor, diagnosing and treating the lung cancer? What could be done regarding people’s attitudes and behavior regarding the taboos and stigmas?

From the professional's perspective, what kind of workflows might help doctors to diagnose and spot the lung cancer earlier?

Are there some hidden lags and delays in going to see the doctor, the treatment and/or diagnosis of lung cancer? How might we streamline the process and support both the doctors and patients in a new way?