Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. and sits at the intersection of several pressures health systems are already managing: an aging patient population, uneven access to screening and a disease that is still most often caught too late.
How lung cancer affects a health system depends heavily on where it operates. Incidence, mortality, screening and smoking rates, along with Medicare spending, vary widely from state to state.
For healthcare leaders, those state-level differences can inform decisions about screening programs, patient volume and investment in early detection.
Becker’s compiled a list of the facts and figures healthcare leaders need to know about lung cancer using data from the American Cancer Society, the CDC, CMS and a lung cancer screening study published Dec. 9, 2025, in CHEST.
Here are 15 facts and figures healthcare executives need to know about lung cancer in the U.S.:
U.S. lung cancer deaths and survival
- The lung cancer death rate fell from 55.4 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 27.9 in 2024.
- Despite that progress, lung cancer had the highest death rate of any cancer, at 27.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024, and the third-highest incidence rate, at 50.1 per 100,000 in 2023, behind female breast and prostate cancers.
- An estimated 229,410 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2026, and an estimated 124,990 will die from it.
Lung cancer accounts for about 1 in 5 cancer deaths, and more people die from it each year than from colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. - The overall five-year relative survival rate of lung cancer patients diagnosed between 2016 and 2022 was 30%.
Lung cancer screening and early detection
- In 2024, an estimated 13.3 million U.S. adults were eligible for lung cancer screening under U.S. Preventive Services Task Force criteria. Of those, 18.3% were up to date on screening, compared with 4.5% in 2015.
- Lung cancer screening rates vary widely by state. In 2024, screening rates ranged from 11% in California to 28% in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania under the American Cancer Society’s eligibility criteria.
- Nearly 44% of lung cancers diagnosed between 2019 and 2023 were found at a distant stage, compared with 30.1% diagnosed at a localized stage.
- The five-year relative survival rate for lung cancer patients diagnosed between 2016 and 2022 was 10.1% when cancer was diagnosed at a distant stage, compared with 61.2% when cancer was diagnosed at a localized stage.
Medicare costs for lung cancer
- For claims where lung cancer was the principal diagnosis, traditional Medicare spent an average of $8,896 per beneficiary with lung cancer in 2023. Including all care, the average total cost per beneficiary with lung cancer was $43,775.
- Vermont had the lowest average Medicare costs for lung cancer patients in 2023, at $5,633 in principal cost and $31,096 in total cost. Kansas had the highest principal cost, at $12,537, and California had the highest total cost, at $53,150.
Lung cancer rates by state
- Kentucky had the highest lung cancer incidence rate in 2023, at 82.7 per 100,000 people, while Utah had the lowest, at 23.5 per 100,000.
- Kentucky also had the highest lung cancer death rate in 2024, at 46.5 per 100,000 people, and Utah again had the lowest, at 14.1 per 100,000.
- Thirty-one states had lung cancer incidence rates above the national rate of 50.1 per 100,000 people in 2023.
- Twenty-eight states had lung cancer death rates above the national rate of 27.9 per 100,000 people in 2024.
- Among states with available data in 2024, adult smoking rates ranged from 6% in Utah to 22% in West Virginia, while the median adult smoking rate across all states was 12%.
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