As we already know, lung cancer is a serious diagnosis, often made worse because it’s hard to find and diagnose before it’s reached a late stage – which then makes it harder to treat.
And thanks to many strategic and effective public health campaigns, it is now common knowledge that cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer.
“People think my lung cancer was self-inflicted”
However, we also know, lung cancer is not limited to people who smoke or who have smoked. Smoking can certainly increase your risk, but for some patients, getting a lung cancer diagnosis is especially difficult because they don’t fit that profile.
Did you know that, as well as cigarette smoking, there are other risk factors and triggers for lung cancer, such as family history, second-hand smoke, radon and environmental pollution?
Did you know 20% of women with lung cancer have never smoked in their lives? Did you know that lung cancer claims the lives of more women than breast, ovarian and cervical cancers combined? (Lung Cancer Research Foundation, 2019)
The question that is nearly always asked of a lung cancer patient is “well did you ever smoke?” This can be really hurtful, isolating and shaming.
“People assume that it’s straightforward to treat”
It’s difficult also for doctors to know more definitive prognoses and timelines for lung cancer because it is a complicated, aggressive cancer. The prognosisto predict how a disease/condition may progress and what the outcome might be depends on many variables, including disease sub-type, stage at diagnosis, treatment options, treatment tolerance, response to therapy, other medical issues, social support, access to care, and so on. This is the case for every cancer, but lung cancer is highly complex, and this makes it more challenging for doctors to predict.
“People assume that it’s easy to diagnose because lung symptoms are obvious”
Even more confusing for those suffering from lung cancer is the fact that non-specific symptom can be related – not just those that involve the lungs. Lower back pain, sudden weight loss, hormone changes and fatigue can all be little-known symptoms of lung cancer.
But there is hope. Lung cancer survival rates are much higher in cases where the condition is discovered before it spreads. And though there is no current established lung cancer screening program, there has been research showing that low-dose CT screening for lung cancer can save lives by up to 61%, published in Feb 2020 (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793?query=featured_home). This is possibly the most important discovery in the last 25 years for lung cancer.
“People assume that it kills very quickly”
It’s also important to recognise that metastatic lung cancer is not an automatic death sentence. Many tumours can be successfully surgically removed from essential organs, including lungs, and in some cases, remission can be achieved by surgery alone. Additionally, new gene mutations are being discovered, and targeted therapies are being developed at an incredible rate for even the most aggressive and advancedat a late stage, far along types of lung cancer, including small cell lung cancer.
Whilst far too many lives are still being lost to dreaded lung cancers Dr Andrea Wolf, surgeon and head of the women’s lung cancer program at Mount Sinai in NYC says there is reason to be hopeful. “This is no longer a disease that kills everyone. In its early stages, it is completely curable, and even at its later stages, we see it as a chronic disease that can be controlled, and that people can live with for years. Even the incredibly rare kinds can be treated successfully, and the treatments we have now are booming.”