Some people might try to distance themselves from a disease that has stolen the lives of three relatives and was about to take one more.

But Lynne Winchell is running head-on into the growing fight against lung cancer because she’s one of the few left alive among her family who can do it.

Winchell is spearheading the inaugural Free to Breathe 5K in Denver Saturday to help raise awareness and research funds for lung cancer, the No. 1 cancer killer of men and women in Colorado.

After witnessing the death of her father and his parents, while his sister spends her last days in hospice, Winchell hopes that no other family will have to face such pain and loss. the run is in honor of Duke Colorosa, Winchell’s father, who succumbed to lung cancer in may.

“There aren’t many survivors of lung cancer, so it’s really up to their loved ones to raise awareness about the disease and raise funding for research,” says the 38-year-old mother of two young boys.

More than a hundred advocates, community supporters and survivors have registered for the walk, which starts at 9 a.m. and will wind through 80 acres of Stapleton Central Park. Register online for $20 by Wednesday; set up teams or donate at freetobreathe.org. all proceeds will benefit the National Lung Cancer Partnership’s research, education and awareness programs.

Dozens of similar athletic events, including yogathons and golf tournaments, have been popping up in cities across the nation since the partnership initiated its Free to Breathe program in 2006. San Diego will hold its event on the same day as Denver’s, and about 30 more will be held between now and December.

Winchell contacted the partnership in November 2009 to request an event in Denver. in January, the partnership agreed and asked Winchell to chair it. Duke Colorosa, 59, spent his last few months coping with chemotherapy and helping his daughter Lynne secure donations, volunteers and sponsorships from the Holland and Hart law firm, Genentech and other local companies.

When Winchell and her mother, Joanne Colorosa, make it across the finish line, Duke’s spirit no doubt will saunter with them. if her arthritis “forces me to take 10 feet back and then walk over the line, I’m doing it,” says Joanne, who has helped her daughter coordinate the event.

“My husband survived a ditch cave-in, Hepatitis C contracted from a blood transfusion, and he lived for 22 months after he was told he only had three when he had Stage 4 lung cancer,” Joanne says.

“He never gave up the fight. And neither will we.”

Lung cancer kills about 160,000 people in the U.S. each year — more people than breast, colorectal and prostate cancer combined, according to the American Cancer Society. but funding available for research is significantly lower than other types of cancer, experts say.

In 2009, the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense spent $1,675 on research per lung-cancer death, while $18,658 was spent per breast cancer death.

Lung cancer is deadly because roughly 85 percent of patients will die of it within five years of their diagnosis — a mortality rate that hasn’t changed in 30 years. About 75 percent of people are diagnosed at such an advanced stage that treatment may prolong their life, but they will perish inside of two years, says Stephen Malkoski, an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine and Department of Pathology at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine.

Compare that dire statistic with the 85 percent survival rate within five years of diagnosis of breast- and colon-cancer patients.

Fewer survivors to raise awareness

“There are armies of women who have survived breast cancer and have done an amazing job educating, advocating and raising a tremendous amount of money for their disease,” Malkoski says. “But there is no army of lung cancer survivors because most of them are dead.”

Malkoski received a two-year “young investigator grant” from the lung partnership to research how noncancerous cells that surround cancer affect its growth and development. Academic medical researchers tend to focus on areas of study where funding is available, so the partnership hosts grants in hopes of sparking clinical trials and recruiting more physicians into the field.

Lung cancer is known as the “silent killer” because it consumes without serious symptoms until it’s too late to address it. Unlike breast, colon or prostate cancers, there’s no screening protocol in place for early detection. many patients, like Duke Colorosa, find out they have the disease incidentally, during a chest or CT scan for some other perceived ailment such as pneumonia.

When Colorosa collapsed on the kitchen floor after choking on some water June 30, 2008, emergency room doctors were more concerned about the bump on his head than the bump he discovered on the right side of his neck — even though both his parents had died of lung cancer years before, Joanne Colorosa says.

His personal doctor later found tumors in his lung, which eventually spread to his lymph glands, his neck and his brain. Doctors mentioned a possible genetic link when Colorosa’s older sister was diagnosed with the disease in April 2010. Researchers have found genes that can greatly increase the risk factor for lung cancer development.

Smoking is not always to blame

Stigmatized as a “victim’s disease” that cigarette smokers “brought on themselves,” lung cancer patients are often ostracized without the social support other cancer sufferers have.

“If someone gets colon cancer, people don’t ask why didn’t you eat enough fiber?” says Joanne Colorosa. “But if you say a loved one died of lung cancer, the first thing people say is, ‘Well, did they smoke?’

“Yes, my husband and his parents did smoke and grew up in a generation where everyone else did, as well,” she says. “He also helped construct many Denver shopping centers in the ’60s and ’70s that were built with asbestos. Does it matter? Until you have lived with someone with cancer, you cannot really understand how horrible it is, no matter its type.”

Winchell and her brother remain cancer free and have never smoked. but still they are at risk, as more nonsmokers continue to fall prey to lung cancer. other possible causes include secondhand smoke, radon gas, asbestos and air pollution.

About 15 percent of new lung cancer cases are being diagnosed in nonsmokers, while as many as half of all lung cancers in the U.S. occur in patients who quit smoking decades ago.

Winchell wants to see early lung- cancer detection tests become as systematic as annual breast cancer exams, as well as more funding for programs geared at stopping smoking. Until then, organizing the the 5K has stemmed her grief — from securing city permits and pushing for volunteers to renting tables and purchasing T-shirts.

“It’s given me something to take off the sadness,” Winchell says. “Things are getting more difficult now, with my aunt not doing well against the cancer. but if we can help out one or two families not have to go through what we went through, it was worth it.”

Sheba R. Wheeler: 303-954-1283 or