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Lung cancer splits into non-small-cell disease, about 85 percent of it, and small-cell disease, which was 6.6 percent of English cases in 2024 and 9.1 percent of Welsh ones (National Lung Cancer Audit, State of the Nation 2026); the two behave and are treated very differently. Screening, staging and the things both types share are common ground; the rest belongs to each subtype.
Lung cancer is divided by histology into non-small-cell lung cancer, itself split into adenocarcinoma, squamous and large-cell carcinoma, and small-cell lung cancer, a fast-growing neuroendocrine tumour almost always linked to smoking. Non-small-cell disease has more than a dozen targetable driver mutations and is treated with surgery, radiotherapy, targeted drugs and immunotherapy by stage and biology; small-cell disease is treated with chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy and relapses quickly. Low-dose CT screening of heavy smokers cuts lung cancer deaths by about a fifth, and tobacco control remains the largest lever. Mesothelioma and thymic tumours are separate thoracic cancers.
How the family is organised. Four classifications of lung cancer are in daily use at once and they do not nest. The World Health Organization's Classification of Thoracic Tumours, fifth edition (2021), names the tumour types: adenocarcinoma and its patterns, squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma, the sarcomatoid carcinomas, adenosquamous carcinoma, the salivary-gland-type tumours, and a separate chapter of neuroendocrine neoplasms holding typical carcinoid, atypical carcinoid, large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma and small cell carcinoma. The NCI's PDQ summaries use the clinical split instead, one summary for non-small-cell lung cancer and one for small-cell lung cancer, because that split decides the first fork of treatment. The molecular subsets (EGFR-mutant, ALK-rearranged, ROS1, KRAS G12C, MET exon 14, RET, BRAF, HER2, NTRK, NRG1) decide the second fork but are states a tumour is in rather than types of tumour, and no classification lists them as entities. On this site the family reads: lung cancer, then non-small-cell and small-cell, then the histologies under non-small-cell, with large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma sitting beside the clinical split rather than inside it because it belongs to neither. Mesothelioma arises from the pleura and is not a lung cancer, however close it sits in the chest.
How common it is, worldwide. Lung cancer is the commonest cancer in the world and the commonest cause of cancer death, and it is the only cancer that tops both lists. The IARC fact sheet, served with the GLOBOCAN 2024 estimates, counts 2,637,005 new cases a year (age-standardised rate 23.9 per 100,000) and 1,861,839 deaths (16.3 per 100,000). Asia carries 1,730,334 of the cases (65.6 percent) and 1,196,664 of the deaths (64.3 percent); Europe 478,683 and 369,740 (18.2 and 19.9 percent); Northern America 258,423 and 151,406 (9.8 and 8.1 percent); Latin America and the Caribbean 103,726 and 89,548; Africa 47,006 and 41,045; Oceania 18,833 and 13,436. The highest national rate in men is Hungary at 61.8 per 100,000, and in women Hungary and Denmark at 36.0. Five-year prevalence is lower relative to yearly incidence than for most cancers, because survival after a lung cancer diagnosis is shorter: 2,345,582 of the world's prevalent cases are in Asia (65.7 percent).
Which types, and in what proportion. Using the GLOBOCAN 2022 base with the recorded incidence of Cancer Incidence in Five Continents volume XII, of 1,572,045 lung cancers in men worldwide 717,211 (45.6 percent) were adenocarcinoma, 461,171 (29.4 percent) squamous cell carcinoma, 180,063 (11.5 percent) small-cell carcinoma and 101,861 (6.5 percent) large-cell carcinoma; of 908,630 in women, 541,971 (59.7 percent) were adenocarcinoma, 155,598 (17.1 percent) squamous, 87,902 (9.7 percent) small-cell and 59,271 (6.5 percent) large-cell (Lancet Respiratory Medicine 2025). Adenocarcinoma is now the commonest type in both sexes everywhere the data allow the question to be asked, and the highest adenocarcinoma rates are in east Asia (27.12 per 100,000 men, 19.04 per 100,000 women). The same study attributed 114,486 male and 80,378 female adenocarcinomas in 2022 to ambient particulate matter pollution.
The United Kingdom. Lung cancer is the 3rd commonest cancer in the UK, with around 50,200 new cases a year, nearly 140 a day, 11 percent of all new cancer cases: about 25,500 in males and 24,700 in females (Cancer Research UK, 2019 and 2021 to 2022). It is the commonest cause of cancer death, with around 32,800 deaths a year, 90 a day (2022 to 2024). Almost half of new cases (46 percent) are in people aged 75 and over, and rates are highest at 80 to 84. Incidence has fallen about 11 percent since the early 1990s and 5 percent in the last decade; mortality has fallen 40 percent since the early 1970s and 22 percent in the last decade. The lifetime risk of a diagnosis is nearly 1 in 13 for females and 1 in 14 for males born in 1961 (both about 7 percent).
The United States. The SEER programme projects 229,410 new cases (10.8 percent of all cancers) and 124,990 deaths (20.0 percent of all cancer deaths) for 2026, which makes lung and bronchus cancer the 3rd commonest cancer diagnosed and by a wide margin the commonest cause of cancer death. The rate of new cases is 47.2 per 100,000 a year (2019 to 2023) and the death rate 30.2 (2020 to 2024); both are falling, incidence by 1.9 percent a year over 2014 to 2023 and mortality by 4.1 percent a year over 2015 to 2024, the fastest fall of any common cancer. The median age at diagnosis is 71 and at death 73; about 5.2 percent of Americans will be diagnosed in their lifetime; 661,853 people were living with the disease in 2023. Rates differ by group: 63.7 per 100,000 in non-Hispanic Black men and 57.0 in non-Hispanic White men against 29.8 in Hispanic men; 50.9 in non-Hispanic White women and 48.6 in non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native women against 23.2 in Hispanic women.
Screening, in one paragraph. Two randomised trials carry the case. The National Lung Screening Trial randomised 53,454 Americans aged 55 to 74 with at least 30 pack-years to three annual low-dose CT scans or chest radiographs and found 20.0 percent fewer lung cancer deaths (95 percent confidence interval 6.8 to 26.7) and 6.7 percent fewer deaths from any cause. NELSON randomised 13,195 men and 2,594 women aged 50 to 74 in the Netherlands and Belgium to volume CT at baseline and years 1, 3 and 5.5 or to nothing, and found a death rate ratio of 0.76 (0.61 to 0.94) in men at ten years and 0.67 (0.38 to 1.14) in women. The UK National Screening Committee recommended targeted screening at 55 to 74 for people at high risk in June 2022; England's Targeted Lung Health Check programme, running since 2019, became the national Lung Cancer Screening Programme and by March 2025 had invited over two million people and diagnosed 7,193 lung cancers, 63.1 percent at stage 1 and 12.6 percent at stage 2, with full coverage expected in 2030.
What the family shares, and what it does not. Every type is staged by the same system, the ninth edition of the TNM classification, in force since 1 January 2025; every type is investigated down the same pathway of chest X-ray, contrast-enhanced CT, PET-CT and needle sampling of mediastinal nodes through the airway wall; and every type is caused overwhelmingly by the same exposure, so the same prevention works on all of them. What the family does not share is treatment: the driver-matched pills that transformed adenocarcinoma do nothing for squamous or small-cell disease, and the surgery that cures early non-small-cell disease is rarely the right operation for small-cell disease. The subtype pages carry the treatment; this page carries what is common.
Adenocarcinoma is the commonest type in both sexes, and 72 percent of UK cases are caused by smoking.
Averages across everyone diagnosed, often years ago. A median is the middle of a group: half the people counted lived longer than the figure shown, and some lived far longer. Your stage, subtype, age, fitness and the treatment you receive matter more than the average, and the numbers are improving quickly.
Central tumours arise in the large airways, peripheral ones in the alveoli; both drain to hilar then mediastinal nodes, and the pleural lining is a separate cancer site.
Same organ: Mediastinal germ cell tumour, Pleuropulmonary blastoma (types I, Ir, II and III), Type A and type AB thymoma, Type B1 and type B2 thymoma, Type B3 thymoma, Micronodular thymoma with lymphoid stroma, Adenocarcinoma of the lung, Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, Large cell carcinoma of the lung, Sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung, Adenosquamous carcinoma of the lung, Invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma of the lung, Adenocarcinoma in situ and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma of the lung, Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung, Pulmonary blastoma (adult), Non-small-cell lung cancer, Small-cell lung cancer, Mesothelioma, Pleural mesothelioma, Thymoma and thymic carcinoma, Childhood lung and airway tumours (pleuropulmonary blastoma, tracheobronchial tumours), Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour (IMT), EGFR-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer, ALK-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, KRAS G12C-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, ROS1-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, MET exon 14 and MET-amplified non-small-cell lung cancer, RET fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, BRAF V600E-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, HER2-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, NTRK fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, PD-L1-high non-small-cell lung cancer without a driver mutation, Resectable stage I to III non-small-cell lung cancer, Unresectable stage III non-small-cell lung cancer, Limited-stage small-cell lung cancer, Extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer, Lung neuroendocrine tumours (typical and atypical carcinoid), Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung, Thymoma (WHO types A, AB, B1, B2 and B3), Thymic carcinoma
Background: Screening. Also on OnCo: Symptoms and red flags · Early detection roadmap.
The standard of care by setting, the medicines, surgery and radiotherapy named in it, and the regimens behind them.
Trials recruiting now, the landmark trials, the trials held by this cancer's subtypes, the key papers and what they mean, the latest literature, and the milestones year by year.
Cases by country, the UK and NHS pathway and other country lenses, the expert centres with trials on record, and the centres named on this cancer's subtypes.
The decisions you may face, the aids that walk through them, the warnings on record, the first sixty days and the questions to ask.
Everything in development, the medicines held by this cancer's subtypes, the open problems and what is being done about them, the roadmaps, and what changed on this record.
Every connected record, the notes, the JSON, Markdown and RDF twins, and where the record came from and when it was checked.
Commercial and regulated products that are aimed at this cancer. Each card says what is behind it: a regulator's database, the literature, a public body's list, or only the company's own words. Listing is not endorsement, and a clearance is a regulatory fact, not a clinical one.
Software that suppresses vessels on chest CT so nodules stand out, with a detection algorithm on top.
A family of chest radiograph and CT algorithms that flag lung nodules and other findings, deployed in screening and case-finding programmes in several countries.
A lung cancer screening product that classifies nodules found on low-dose CT.
Software that scores the malignancy risk of a lung nodule seen on CT and tracks it over time, aimed at the decision of whether to biopsy.