World Lung Cancer Day Passes As Number Of New Cases Is Decreasing

Friday was World Lung Cancer Day…a day to raise awareness for the leading cause of cancer death in the US.

While the number of new cases of lung cancer continues to decrease, due in part to less people smoking, rates are increasing in certain groups who are non-smokers.

One woman, known as Randy, had her cancer was detected early.

She had surgery to remove the tumor and part of her lung and did not need any other treatment.

“People think, Well, I never smoked. How would I ever get lung cancer? How could that be? So I think that it’s very important to raise awareness, especially in younger women.”

Dr. Andrew Kaufman with the Mount Sinai Health System is among researchers trying to understand why these cancers are increasing, more common in women and Asian women….“We don’t seem to understand all of the underlying biology, but we do know smoking-related lung cancer is distinctly.”

Different from never smoking lung cancer, and there are different genetic changes that occur between those two different groups.

Dr. Kaufman says the main driver, especially for Asian women, is the non-inherited EGFR gene mutation, which tests show Randy also has.

Randy says she hopes more people like her can be screened regularly to save lives.

A recent study from Mount Sinai also found a link between Hispanic women and never smoking lung cancer.