Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in Australia and is the world’s most lethal cancer. In healthy lungs, normal lung tissue cells reproduce and develop into healthy lung tissue. With lung cancer, abnormal cells reproduce rapidly and never grow into normal lung tissue. Lumps of cancer cells form tumours which disrupt the functioning of the lung.

Lung cancer research helps us understand how the disease is caused, how it develops and how it can be best treated.

What we are doing now and where our research is taking us

We are partners of the Lung Cancer Clinical Quality Data Platform – a patient-focused research group who are developing a national quality data platform for lung cancer that collects, analyses and reports on information like how quickly people get lung cancer tests, what sorts of tests are done and how quickly people get treatments.

Scientists within the Occupational and Respiratory Health Group are looking at how to improve and develop ways of finding lung cancer when it is in this early stage.

Lung screening is one of the biggest advances in the fight against lung cancer in decades.

Prof Fraser Brims, Head of the Occupational and Respiratory Health Group