Diana Wei, a 59-year-old woman who has never smoked a day in her life, unexpectedly lost 5 pounds, lost another 13 pounds six months later, and was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Wei initially denied losing weight due to the stress of moving from New York to California with her husband and starting a new job before the COVID-19 pandemic. But when she lost more weight without changing her diet and exercise habits, she began to worry.
After informing her new doctor, Shih-Fan Sun, MD of UCLA Health, about her weight loss, routine check-ups were performed and everything was back to normal.
Six months later, when Wei returned for a follow-up, she had lost 13 pounds, prompting Dr. Sun to order a full-body scan.
RELATED: ‘Fast food addict’ mom, 50, attended weight-loss class, found breast lump: ‘Losing 56 pounds found cancer, saved my life!
Reflecting on what the doctor said a week later, Wei told UCLA Health: I saw something in the scan. I think you should contact a respiratory specialist. That’s when I started panicking. “
Wei was in disbelief when a scan found a lung nodule that led to a diagnosis of lung cancer. Because she never smoked and she always had preventive physical procedures.
“When they told me I had lung cancer my first reaction was ‘What are you talking about?’ I didn’t understand. At first I was really pretty angry. I’ve done all the things. I always have checkups,” she explained.
RELATED: You Never Smoked, But You Still Got Lung Cancer!Your treatment options may vary
She had regular mammograms and Pap smears “like clockwork,” she said, and her cholesterol and blood pressure were always within healthy limits.
According to thoracic surgeon Jane Yanagawa, M.D., the number of nonsmokers who get lung cancer has increased over the past few decades.
Yanagawa, of Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, said Wei’s case is “a study to uncover risk factors and demographic factors to provide the same screening benefits as we do to patients who have ever smoked.” , shows that more research is needed, and we can scale it up for patients who never smoked.”
She noted that occupational and environmental exposures, genetic susceptibility, and exposure to secondhand smoke are also risk factors for lung cancer.
In Wei’s case, the cancer was caught early, so a successful surgical treatment called a “partial excision” was performed to remove the cancerous tissue.
Dr. Yanagawa said, “Because of the very early detection of minimally invasive lung cancer and its small size, a lung-sparing resection was performed. Her life is not expected to be affected by this. It is believed that he was cured of
Wei, who is cancer-free almost a year after her diagnosis, needs to be followed up with regular CT scans to prevent another cancer from developing, Dr. Yanagawa said.
Now she has “a whole new outlook on life” and does not take “health for granted”.
“Without the weight loss, I would have continued doing what I was doing without a clue,” Wei said. “As women, we are busy taking care of our families and working, and sometimes let things slip. But we need to take care of our bodies and be vigilant. If you feel that something is wrong, please consult your doctor and get tested.”
understanding lung cancer
Lung cancer, the second most common cancer, is the leading cause of cancer death in men and women in the United States. Diagnosis and treatment of this disease can be difficult because symptoms often do not appear until the cancer has spread.
For example, if lung cancer has already spread to the brain, early symptoms can be as severe as a seizure. However, other symptoms include increased coughing, chest pain, unexplained weight loss, shortness of breath, wheezing, loss of voice, and persistent infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
The two main types of lung cancer are non-small cell and small cell, which account for 85% of cases. These types work differently and require different types of treatment.
Dr. Patrick Forde, a thoracic oncologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, tells SurvivorNet how it can be beneficial to distinguish between the two types (and their subtypes).
What Happens When You Are Newly Diagnosed With Lung Cancer
“Within that non-small cell category is a subtype called non-squamous adenocarcinoma, and that’s a group of patients for whom genetic testing for tumors is very important,” he explains. We look for mutations in the DNA within the tumor that are not present in the normal DNA.”
Surgical Options for Lung Cancer
There are several types of lung cancer surgery, and which one is best depends mainly on the location, size, and whether the cancer has started to spread. If the tumor is small and outside the lung, wedge resection is an option. In this procedure, the surgeon removes part of the lung (in a wedge) but does not affect lung function.
In contrast, a lobectomy, or segmentectomy, removes a specific portion of the lung (a lobe). However, in a pneumonectomy, the entire lung is removed.
Considering Surgical Options for Lung Cancer Patients
There are several methods of surgery for lung cancer. The standard surgery was a laparotomy, in which a large incision was made in the chest to spread the ribs. However, due to postoperative pain and long recovery times, physicians are increasingly using minimally invasive procedures such as minimally invasive video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) and robotic techniques.
Surgeons consider all these options when planning treatment.
lung cancer in nonsmokers
Declining smoking rates have improved the outlook for lung cancer. This is because smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that cigarette smoking is associated with about 80 to 90% of lung cancer deaths, and that people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get or die from lung cancer. 15 to 30 times higher than humans. non-smokers.
However, it is important to remember that even people who have never smoked can get lung cancer. The CDC reports that approximately 10% to 20% of lung cancers in the United States, or 20,000 to 40,000 cases of lung cancer each year, occur in never-smokers.
RELATED: 87% of eligible people skipped lung cancer screening, finds analysis.Know the importance of lung cancer screening
“Some lung cancers are due to unknown exposures to air pollution, radon, or asbestos,” Dr. Raja Flores, system chair of thoracic surgery at Mount Sinai, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview. “There is also an increasing number of nonsmokers with a family history of lung cancer.”
Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. According to the World Health Organization, it causes 3% to 16% of cancer cases, depending on the levels present in a particular area, but smokers still have a 25-fold higher risk of radon than nonsmokers. increase.
Another possible cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers could be passive smoking. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 7,000 adults die from lung cancer each year from second-hand smoke.
Air pollution, family history, and HIV or AIDS can all also affect a nonsmoker’s chance of developing lung cancer. In any case, it is important not to rule out the disease just because you do not smoke. This is a fact that Donna Hunting is well aware of.
Hunting was a nonsmoker when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. But her cancer, aged 54, who was active, had progressed further considering she had stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer.
If You Have Lungs, You Can Get Lung Cancer — Survivor Donna Hunting Shares Her Story
“That day was a shock to my family and me,” she previously told SurvivorNet. “This is not a smoker’s disease. If you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.”
Fortunately for Hunting, tests revealed that her tumor had a mutation in a specific gene called EGFR. This means that her doctor gave her a drug that blocked these mutations and was able to effectively rid her body of the disease.
“Fifty days later, miraculously, my PET scan showed no evidence of disease,” she said.
Hunting was on medication for over a year until it stopped working. I can.
“Cancer is part of my life now, but it’s not my whole life. Cancer doesn’t define me,” Hunting said.
Contributed by SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet’s rigorous medical review process.
