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Lung Cancer Diagnoses dropping but hospital
admissions are the same
Newswise — Hospital admissions for lung cancer remained
relatively stable – at roughly 150,000 a
year between 1995 and 2006 – despite a
steady decline in the number of Americans
diagnosed with the disease, according to the
latest News and Numbers from the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality.
Admissions have remained constant, in part, because lung
cancer patients are surviving longer and
undergoing more hospital-related treatments
such as chemotherapy and tumor-removal
surgery, according to AHRQ experts.
Smoking is considered a main cause of lung cancer – the
most deadly type of cancer – but the disease
can also result from exposure to hazardous
substances such as asbestos, radon,
pollution or second-hand smoke, as well as
genetic predisposition to the disease.
AHRQ’s analysis also found that:
• The average hospital cost for a lung cancer patient in
2006 was $14,200 (about $1,900 a day). The
total cost for all patients was about $2.1
billion.
• The death rate of hospitalized lung cancer patients was
13 percent – five times higher than the
average overall death rate (2.6 percent) for
hospitalized patients.
• Only 2.4 percent of hospitalized lung cancer patients in
2006 were younger than 44. About 63 percent
were 65 or older.
• Hospitalizations for lung cancer were far more common in
the South (89 admissions per 100,000
persons) than in the Northeast (25
admissions per 100,000 persons).
This AHRQ News and Numbers is based on data from Hospital
Stays for Lung Cancer, 2006 (HCUP
Statistical Brief # 63 found at
http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb63.pdf).
The report uses statistics from the 2006 Nationwide
Inpatient Sample, a database of hospital
inpatient stays that is nationally
representative of inpatient stays in all
short-term, non-Federal hospitals.
The data are drawn from hospitals that comprise 90 percent
of all discharges in the United States and
include all patients, regardless of
insurance type, as well as the uninsured.
For information from the U.S. Public Health
Service on tobacco cessation, go to
http://www.ahrq.gov/path/tobacco.htm.
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