There is still some lingering stigma attached to smoking rates in the past and there are not the same survivor numbers as some other cancers, like breast cancer, for people to share their stories.

The Ballarat Cancer Care and Haematology oncologist said dramatic improvements in treating lung cancer were the main driver for a consistent and significant decline in overall cancer deaths in Australia and gradually changing the narrative.

"There is an increased focus on working out, more specifically, the different types of lung cancer it could be," Dr Smith said. "There are lots of different types of lung cancers that are not related to smoking at all.

"Even in people who have been smokers or some who have stopped smoking, this doesn't not mean smoking has caused these lung cancers.

"I'm hoping it gradually changes the stigma around lung cancer. It's restrictive on getting research done and getting people to donate to research."

Dr Smith said this year's annual data created a buzz in the cancer care community.

Lung cancer remains the clear largest cancer killer of Australians and accounts for more cancer deaths than breast, prostate and colorectal cancer combined.

But, what oncologists were starting to see - in data and in their patients - was a rise in the two-year survival rate for advanced lung cancer patients. Dr Smith said this was something oncology teams rarely, if ever, saw but now they were starting to accumulate survivors with three, four and five years and no indications their treatment was failing them.

While Dr Smith said improved tobacco control and a fall in people taking up smoking was a contributing factor, changes in treatment were playing a big role in survival.

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Dr Smith said treatment for lung cancer rapidly evolved on a month-by-month basis and most treatment in play now was not even used two years ago.

"Similarly in the different ways we approach ways to treat lung cancer," Dr Smith said.

"There is an idea in many doing a combination of traditional, old-school chemotherapy and new drugs that the immune system is activated to produce greater long-term control. That's why there is a longer-term survival rate.

"Immunotherapy is also a lot easier for a lot of patients to tolerate."

Dr Smith said metastatic lung cancer was not curable but a range of immunotherapy drugs - including pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq) - have boosted survival rates in use either alone or with chemotherapy.

Patient age, fitness, personal priorities and cancer characteristics are all taken into consideration from oncology teams in tailoring treatment options.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data estimates 9.1 per cent of all new cancers diagnosed in Australia this year will be lung cancer.

Dr Smith urged people to keep up routine checks, like pap smears, moles, colonoscopies and mammograms amid the pandemic. She said it was pleasing the threat of COVID-19 was starting to diminish in the community but general health also needed to be a priority.

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