"My wife passed away from lung cancer last year. I never thought she would get lung cancer because she was a non-smoker and was so healthy that she hardly caught a cold. She went to her annual check-ups and never missed a chest X-ray, but she lived less than three years after the diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. The scary thing is that she had no symptoms until she was in stage 4. Unlike breast cancer, there is no way to self-diagnose lung cancer. If you start coughing and coughing up blood, you're probably already in stage 4. I lost my beloved wife (to lung cancer) despite working for a pharmaceutical company developing a cure for lung cancer. It's also unfortunate for our children still growing up."

This is the story of Chon Se-whan, country president of AstraZeneca Korea.

At the launch of "Lung Live the Queen," a campaign for early detection of lung cancer in women, held by AstraZeneca Korea on Cancer Prevention Day, Chon shared his wife's story and emphasized the importance of early detection of lung cancer in women.

"AstraZeneca develops and supplies treatments for lung cancer. Nevertheless, the most important thing in lung cancer is survival through early diagnosis rather than treatment," Chon said.

Chon noted that in Korea, lung cancer, not breast cancer, is the number one cancer killer of women. He emphasized that more women die from lung cancer than from breast and ovarian cancer combined.

Breast cancer is well-campaigned, and awareness is high, with 95 percent of cases detected in the first stage, he said. But in lung cancer, the rate is less than 30 percent.

If a patient is diagnosed in stage 4, the five-year survival rate is less than 10 percent, but if diagnosed in stage 1, the survival rate is over 80 percent for more than five years, he said, emphasizing the importance of early lung cancer screening “to prevent unhappiness.”

Drawing from his wife's experience, Chon highlighted the challenge of detecting lung cancer solely through chest X-rays. He recommended combining chest X-rays with low-dose CT scans or AI solutions for more effective detection.

In Korea, there has been a significant rise in lung cancer cases among non-smoking women. A Korean study conducted from 2008 to 2015 found that approximately 94 percent of female lung cancer patients were non-smokers.

Lee Hee-jung, director of the Korean Lung Cancer Patients Association, shared her experience of being diagnosed and battling lung cancer, representing female lung cancer patients. She emphasized the crucial role of early detection in effectively combating the disease.

"Until I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last year, I thought that lung cancer had nothing to do with me as a non-smoker woman," said Lee. "If I had known in advance that lung cancer is a dangerous disease for women, I would have gotten checked earlier. I hope that through this campaign, everyone in Korea will realize that lung cancer is a disease that must be checked and taken care of."

She also expressed hope that the government would recognize that lung cancer can occur in women who do not smoke and those exposed to other environmental factors. She called for improvements in various national policies, emphasizing the need to move beyond regarding smoking as the sole link to lung cancer.

The "Lung Live the Queen" campaign, launched by AstraZeneca Korea this year, draws inspiration from the slogan "Long Live the Queen," which expresses support for the Queen and wishes for her health and longevity in the U.K. It echoes the desire for all women to live a healthy life free from lung cancer.

AstraZeneca Korea intends to carry out a range of awareness-raising activities in collaboration with partners such as the Korea Foundation for Women and the Korean Lung Cancer Patients’ Association. These efforts aim to increase awareness of the severity of lung cancer in women and promote early screening.

Following the campaign launch ceremony, AstraZeneca Korea organized a participatory event called the "inverted dart game" at COEX in southern Seoul. This event aimed to raise awareness among the general public about the risk factors associated with female lung cancer.