Kentucky is known for its resilience, and few stories demonstrate this better than our transformation when it comes to lung cancer. Our state has historically led the nation in lung cancer rates, but since 2013 — when the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center first achieved National Cancer Institute designation — the rate of late-stage lung cancer has declined at double the national rate. Today, Kentucky has the second-highest rate of lung cancer screening in the U.S., which is saving lives by catching cancer earlier when it’s still treatable.
This remarkable progress stems directly from sustained federal investment in cancer research. But today, this progress hangs in the balance.
The proposed 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health would delay cancer clinical trials, reduce lifesaving screening programs and eliminate research opportunities just when breakthroughs are accelerating.
As Kentucky’s only NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center, UK Markey Cancer Center treats patients from all 120 counties in the Commonwealth. Ninety-seven percent call Kentucky home, and half are from Eastern Kentucky. Each year, 38% of the approximately 29,000 Kentuckians diagnosed with cancer receive care directly at Markey or through our 20 affiliate sites across the state. Last year, individuals from 110 counties enrolled in our nearly 90 ongoing clinical trials.
And as an NCI cancer center, federal funding through the NIH and National Cancer Institute is critical to our mission of bringing cancer care to every corner of the Commonwealth.
Currently, Markey holds over $37.5 million in NIH funding for cancer research, clinical trials and cancer prevention, supporting more than 370 research projects. This funds clinical trials offering patients new options when standard treatments fall short. It supports training the next generation of researchers and clinicians. And it sustains the infrastructure that allows discoveries made in laboratories to reach patients in rural Kentucky just as quickly as those in major metropolitan areas.
Many of Markey’s clinical trials funded by the NIH give Kentucky patients access to the latest treatments — including those for rare, aggressive, and treatment-resistant cancers — without leaving the state. For example, one trial combining radiation with a new chemotherapy significantly improved outcomes for aggressive brain cancer, leading to a new standard of care. Another tested an innovative treatment for rare digestive tumors, with 86% of patients remaining cancer-free at one year after other treatments have stopped working. A third study is testing whether continuing immunotherapy after initial treatment can prevent throat cancer from returning — offering new hope for the one in four patients who currently face recurrence.
This federal investment also keeps talented researchers and clinicians in Kentucky – strengthening our economy and communities. From 2011 to 2023, Markey increased direct employment by 172% while statewide growth reached 13%. Every job we support creates nearly one additional job elsewhere in Kentucky.
Lung cancer represents just one chapter in Kentucky’s cancer comeback story. Twenty years ago, we faced the same grim reality with colorectal cancer. But today, through research-driven interventions and community programs, colorectal cancer screenings have doubled statewide, cutting incidence and mortality by more than 30%. To put this in perspective, 650 fewer Kentuckians are diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 275 fewer die from this disease every year because of these enhanced screening efforts.
The progress we’ve achieved in Kentucky demonstrates what’s possible when science meets sustained commitment. Our prevention, clinical care, and research has transformed Kentucky from a state where cancer was a death sentence into one where it’s increasingly manageable. More than 300,000 long-term cancer survivors are alive and well in Kentucky today because of advances in cancer research. Kentucky’s cancer success story is far from over, but its next chapters depend on maintaining the research investments that created it.
As a surgical oncologist, I have been treating patients with cancer for over 30 years. Over the last decade, I have been the most optimistic that we are seeing significant “wins” in our fight against this deadly disease. Federal funding is driving breakthrough therapies that target specific cancer mutations and harness patients’ own immune cells to attack and destroy tumors. Due to these advances, more and more patients are surviving cancer than ever before. We are actually talking about cures for certain cancers — something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.
Dr. B. Mark Evers, M.D., is director of the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, Kentucky’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.