Together, let’s redefine the future for Albertans facing cancer.

Lung cancer

Every day, 43 Albertans – our friends, our loved ones, our neigbours, hear the words “you have cancer.”

With your help, we will change that.

This year alone, nearly 2000 Albertans are expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer. Sadly, 1700 will die.

Alex and Chelsey with their dad, Don, and mom, Eve

In the past, a clinician would collect a biospecimen—blood, saliva, urine and tissue—from a cancer patient or a healthy volunteer. These samples would then be passed onto a researcher, who would conduct research in the lab and run statistical analysis. The scientist would then share the findings with the original clinician either directly or indirectly via academic publications. The clinician could then use that information to conduct clinical trials and change practice to impact patient care.

Chelsey Capri wishes she didn’t have a lung cancer story of her own. Yet, she remembers the night six years ago she learned her father had the disease. It was a few weeks after her sister, Alex, graduated from high school. Chelsey realized something was wrong when her mother made a meal consisting of everyone’s favourite dishes. After they ate, Chelsey’s dad, Don, went off script and blurted out, “I have lung cancer, but I’m going to be ok.” Sadly, he wasn’t.

As Chelsey says, those words felt like “running into a brick wall while simultaneously getting hit by a semi. Nothing prepared me for it.” Chelsey was a self-described daddy’s girl. A hockey ref, he taught Chelsey to skate at a young age and won a battle with her mom to ensure she wore boys’ skates, instead of figure skates. And when teenagers often avoided their parents, Chelsey stuck close to hers. Her mom worked a night shift Sundays and it became a tradition for her dad to make pizza that night.

The girls would help by adding their favourite toppings and watching, The Simpsons. It was the one night Chelsey always made sure to be there for dinner. So when she heard the diagnosis, she was devastated. As she says, lung cancer statistics do not offer any optimism when a loved one is diagnosed.

Lung cancer is the number one cancer-related death for both men and women in Canada. We lose more people to lung cancer than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined. For unknown reasons, lung cancer is rising among non-smokers, although tobacco still remains the leading cause.

For Chelsey, whose father was a non-smoker, the cause shouldn’t matter. What should matter is that Chelsey and her family lost an important man far too soon. A year after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, he died. His tumour had already metastasized and surgery wasn’t an option. In the last month of his life, Chelsey took time off work and was by his side every day. She was 23 and Alex was 19. As Chelsey says, “Lung cancer is the reason my dad didn’t get to walk me down the aisle and won’t get to see my sister get married. He wasn’t there when I received my college diploma or when my sister received hers, and he won’t be there when I get my degree. He’ll never get to meet his son-in-laws or grandchildren. He was taken away way too early.

I hope that one day they will be able to detect lung cancer at an earlier stage which would prolong the lives of many diagnosed with this horrible disease.”

Chelsey on her wedding day, with her mom and sister, Alex

Despite advances in treatment, there has been little improvement in survival rates over the past 25 years. Out of 20 patients diagnosed with lung cancer, only three are expected to survive.

These aren’t just statistics. These are our loved ones, our families, our friends. More needs to be done. Far too many Albertans have suffered for far too long and it is time to do things differently.

It is time to be bold. It is time to save lives. With your help, we can.

We have committed $500,000 a year for the next five years to make an impact on earlier detection of lung cancer. We invite you to be part of this transformative opportunity.

Why now? So far, no Canadian province has a lung cancer screening program, although a national project recently conducted a small research study to learn more about the disease. With your help, Alberta will be the first to implement a sustainable program. We have committed to $2.5 million over five years to launch a pilot program that can serve as the basis for a larger, provinciallyled screening program. We invite you to help improve outcomes for lung cancer patients in Alberta. For the first time ever, screening for lung cancer with low dose CT scans has been proven to save lives by allowing earlier detection and treatment. In a landmark international study, one out of five lung cancer deaths was prevented by screening. This could mean more than 100 lives saved in Alberta every year. But researchers need to find out the best way to implement this program— who should be screened, how often, and how should they be treated?

In this project, 800 Albertans will take part in a low dose CT scan of their lungs annually for three years. Research led by Dr. Alain Tremblay in Calgary, will measure costs and health-care resources while creating a detailed framework to plan for an eventual provincewide program. As well as screening, the team will determine the effectiveness of counseling-based smoking cessation interventions to see if they can help participants who still smoke, quit. They will also provide follow-up screening for workers previously exposed to asbestos, as they may be at risk of mesothelioma—a chest cancer— in addition to lung cancer.

Your impact At the end of the project, the research team will have advanced knowledge about lung cancer screening and be ready to start a full province-wide screening program, saving many Albertans’ lives. Your gift will immediately • Help recruit more than 800 “high-risk” patients to be screened for lung cancer • Introduce a smoking cessation intervention, combined with lung cancer screening • Screen asbestos-exposed workers • Allow researchers to analyze the cost and resource implications of screening

Be part of this $2.5 million investment that will help reduce lung cancer deaths in Alberta. Help us change those statistics. Give to the Alberta Cancer Foundation and help us redefine the future for Albertans facing cancer. Together, we have the power to change lives.

Dr. Alain Tremblay with Brian Wyllie

Brian Wyllie was one of the lucky ones, who is now an advocate for early screening. Brian, 69, signed up for an earlier Canadian study, one of the routine tests discovered a spot on his lung that had more than doubled in size in one year. He had no symptoms, no pain, didn’t notice anything unusual. He had surgery to remove the spot before it did much harm. Without the early screening, he would have never known the tumour was there. For most lung cancer patients, by the time of diagnosis they are often past the optimal point of treatment. More than half of lung cancer patients are not diagnosed until their lung cancer has reached stage four, and at that point, less than five per cent of people survive. Often treatment is palliative, because there is little doctors can do.

Together, we can change that.

Foundation Offices

Cancer Centres

Edmonton

Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Calgary

710-10123 99 Street NW Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3H1 P: 1.866.412.4222

Calgary Suite 300 1620–29 Street NW Calgary, Alberta T2N 4L7 P: 1.866.412.4222

Cross Cancer Institute 11560 University Avenue Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1Z2 P: 780.432.8500

Tom Baker Cancer Centre

Associate Cancer Centres Central Alberta (Red Deer), Grande Prairie, Jack Ady Cancer Centre (Lethbridge), Margery E. Yuill Cancer Centre, (Medicine Hat)

Community Cancer Centres Barrhead, Bonnyville, Bow Valley,  Camrose, Drayton Valley, Drumheller, High River, Hinton, Lloydminster, Fort McMurray, Peace River

1331 – 29 Street NW Calgary, Alberta T2N 4N2 P: 403.521.3433

Jack Ady Cancer Centre 960 19 Street Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 1W5 P: 403.388.6867

Thank you for redefining the future for Albertans facing cancer.