New data reveals lung cancer responsible for nearly a quarter of Canada’s cancer-related deaths – CTV
August 13, 2025
Five-year survival rates for people with lung cancer have doubled since the 1990s, but the disease still kills more patients than any other type of cancer, a Statistics Canada report said on Wednesday.
The report said the number of people living five years after they were diagnosed jumped from 13 per cent to 27 per cent between 1992 and 2021.
Lung cancer is still responsible for almost a quarter of all cancer deaths in Canada, it said.
The report attributed the increase in lung cancer survival to new treatments, including drugs that target specific molecules in cancer cells and immunotherapy that prompts the patient’s immune system to attack cancerous cells.
“Back in the 1990s, getting a lung cancer diagnosis, it truly was a bit of a death sentence,” said Jessica Moffatt, vice-president of programs and advocacy at the Lung Health Foundation in an interview about the StatCan findings.
“Cancer was detected very late, so usually around stage four, and the likelihood of survival was very low.”
Moffatt agreed that more effective treatments are part of the reason for increased lung cancer survival rates, but also said that better screening has been vital.
