What is lung cancer?

Cancer that starts in one or both of the lungs is known as primary lung cancer. When cancer starts in another part of the body and spreads to the lungs, it is called secondary or metastatic cancer in the lung.

You can access further information about lung cancer, including risk factors, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment from Cancer Council Victoria. You can also call our trusted cancer nurses on 13 11 20 for support and to learn about our range of services for people affected by cancer.

The Victorian Cancer Registry also operates an interactive web portal, Data Explorer, which provides more trends and statistics than published here.

How common is lung cancer?

In 2024, 3435 Victorians were diagnosed with lung cancer. Of these, there were 1818 males and 1616 females, representing 53% and 47% of the total Victorian lung cancer diagnoses, respectively. There were 1 cases where sex was reported as neither male or female, not known, established or defined. Currently, lung cancer is diagnosed at a rate of 45 per 100,000 males and 35 per 100,000 females. The median age at diagnosis of lung cancer is 71 years in males and 71 in females (Figure 1 & 2). Accounting for 8.5% of all cancers diagnosed and 18% of all cancer-related deaths in 2024, lung cancer was the 4th most commonly diagnosed cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in Victoria.

Trends in lung cancer over time

Figure 3a shows for males between 1982 to 2024 the age standardised incidence rate of lung cancer declined by an average of 1.5% per year.

For females between 2020 to 2024 the age standardised incidence rate of lung cancer declined by an average of 0.77% per year. However this result wasn’t statistically significant, meaning the change cannot be confidently considered real and may be due to random fluctuations.

Lung cancer morphology

Figure 4 provides a summary of the different types of cells (morphology) which have caused lung cancer among all cases. Almost 90% of lung cancer tumours are non-small-cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC), a group that can be further divided by cell type. Most lung cancer tumours, 41%, present as adenocarcinoma (nsclc) tumours.

Lung cancer subtypes

Figure 5 provides a breakdown of lung cancer by its location in 2024. Most (45%) are found in the Upper lobe section of the lung.

Geographical variance in lung cancer by local government area

Figure 6 demonstrates variation in the estimated risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer, by local government area, relative to the Victorian average. Red shading indicates areas with higher risk and blue shading indicates areas with lower risk relative to Victoria.

Lung cancer in people born overseas

Figure 7 shows the standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) of lung cancer in Australian-born Victorians compared to other major migrant groups, over the five-year period 2019 to 2023. The highest standardised incidence ratio (SIR) for lung cancer was 1.3 for males born in the Southern Europe region and the lowest SIR of 0.52 was observed in males born in the Southern and Central Asia region. The highest standardised incidence ratio (SIR) for lung cancer was 1.3 for females born in the UK and Ireland region and the lowest SIR of 0.34 was observed in females born in the Southern and Central Asia region.

Lung cancer five-year relative survival

Figure 8 shows the change in 5-year survival for lung cancer, and the 5-year survival trend for all cancers over the same time period. It demonstrates that five-year relative survival has increased for lung cancer between 1985-1989 and 2020-2024 from 10% to 32%.