i can issue 3

Editor's letter:
Onward and upward

We are so used to headlines about problems with cancer services that good news stories can go unnoticed. So it was encouraging to read that Britain has the biggest decreases in early deaths from lung cancer and breast cancer. Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto presented the information to an international cancer meeting in Oslo as they received the King Olav V prize for outstanding research.

Doll and Peto have made huge contributions to our understanding of the causes of cancer. Richard Doll identified the link between smoking and lung cancer and as a result the number of UK smokers decreased – leading to fewer deaths from lung cancer. Their work has a clear message: it is never too late to quit. Even stopping smoking in later life reduces your risk.

But for the many people who have, or will get, lung cancer, they need to know that treatments are available that may improve their quality of life. This November sees the launch of Lung Cancer Awareness month by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and Macmillan Cancer Relief. The former organisation played a key role in the decision by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to recommend four chemotherapy drugs for treating the disease. As yet there are still many people with lung cancer who don't receive chemotherapy. If you, or someone you care for, has lung cancer make sure you ask about such treatment (and take the drugs table from our article on NICE with you to start the discussion).

NICE now produces guidelines on the management of cancer. Further guidelines on supportive care are also being developed. As everyone affected by cancer knows, good cancer care is about more than medicine. Which is the reason i can covers a range of topics – and which, in turn, may be why the demand for i can has been so great that we have increased the number of copies being printed by 10,000.

Jean Mossman, Editor