Fever of Unknown Origin With Normal Inflammatory Markers Due to ...
Scrub Hub: Your Lungs Can Get A 'sunburn' From Heat And Pollution, Making Breathing Hard
usatoday.Com cannot provide a good user experience to your browser. To use this site and continue to benefit from our journalism and site features, please upgrade to the latest version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
Minneapolis Nonprofit Promotes 'simple And Easy Test' To Fight Lung Cancer
When Julie Carr was found to have lung cancer at age 47, it shook the whole family. A nonsmoker, she had always been healthy until the CT scan revealed a tumor in her upper right lung.
Just months later, her father, Gerry Blair, who had risk factors for lung cancer, was found to have a tumor in same spot.
After two family members got such similar diagnoses, Carr's younger sister, Renee Marrero, thought she should get a CT scan, but she was refused because she is a nonsmoker, which means she didn't meet eligibility requirements.
She couldn't get anybody to write her a CT scanning order. Finally, her father's oncologist agreed to scan her, which revealed an 8-millimeter part-solid ground-glass nodule on Marrero's upper right lung — stage 1 cancer and the same spot as her sister's and father's tumors.
It was found early and removed successfully and did not spread to other body parts. She is likely 100% cured. But Carr and their father died.
As a lung cancer survivor, Marrero shared her story on the website for A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation (ABOHLF), a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that fights lung cancer by funding research, raising awareness and supporting lung cancer patients and families.
"Most people with lung cancer do not get the chance to be diagnosed early," Marrero said. "I want my story to make a difference so that everyone becomes more aware and has a chance to catch their cancer early when it is easier to beat. I believe that A Breath of Hope is making a difference."
Established in 2008 by a group of lung cancer patients and family members in the Twin Cities, ABOHLF aims to improve the survival rate of lung cancer patients, which is now only 23% in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute, lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the country. So, ABOHLF is trying to increase public awareness about the disease and encourage preventive screening — a low-dose CT scan — for early detection.
"Just in Minnesota, less than 8% of people who are eligible to be screened have been screened," said Nancy Torrison, executive director of ABHOLF. "So, it's hard to improve the survival rate when everybody is catching it late. Right now, 74% of lung cancer cases in the U.S. Are found in stage 3 or 4."
Torrison is frustrated by the limited eligibility criteria for low-dose CT scans in the United States: adults 50 to 80 who have a 20-pack-year smoking history and smoke or have quit within the past 15 years. (A pack-year is smoking an average of one pack of cigarettes per day for one year.)
"I think it's really important that people who don't meet the criteria right now be very aware of their bodies and their lungs, and ask for what they need," she said. "I go to a lot of funerals, and they are typically people that were not eligible for screening. It's just very, very painful."
Societal blame
Torrison remembers her final conversation in the hospital with her aunt who had late-stage lung cancer.
"She said, 'I deserved to die because I can't beat smoking,'" Torrison recalled. "There's a really major stigma attached to this disease, and most lung cancer patients, whether they smoked or not, get sort of societal blame."
Numerous studies have shown that smoking is not the only lung cancer risk factor; others include family history, radon exposure and air pollution. More than half of all lung cancers occur in people who have quit smoking or never smoked.
"I feel that stigma is still pressing down on the [lung cancer health care] field and holding back certain areas from advancing like they should for the world's deadliest cancer," she said.
Over 11 years of advocating for lung cancer patients, Torrison has discovered multiple barriers that hinder the improvement of survival rates, such as the lack of funding in research and health inequity in minoritized communities. Half of those with lung cancer live in low-income communities, and Black men have the highest rate of lung cancer in the country.
"If you don't even know you can be screened for lung cancer, if you don't have a doctor, you're not going to get screened for lung cancer," she said. "Identifying the people that are eligible is a challenge for health care systems."
To overcome this disparity, ABOHLF is conducting a Great Minnesota Screen-Together campaign in collaboration with partners such as Mayo Clinic, Allina Health and the University of Minnesota. In the next two weeks, a statewide advertising drive will urge people to take a CT-scan eligibility quiz with three simple questions. There is also a lung cancer education exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair hosted by ABOHLF in the KARE 11 Health booth, where volunteers will be sending out the quiz.
"In such a disadvantaged cancer like lung cancer, we want every patient to have every advantage and educate themselves," Torrison said. "It's an easy and simple test that can save your life. There's no shame in being screened for lung cancer. So why wouldn't you do it if you're one of the 'lucky' eligible ones?"
More information about lung cancer, its symptoms and prevention: youandlungcancer.Com/en-lc/home#
Lung Cancer News
Dec. 1, 2022 — About 80% of people with cancer suffer from significant muscle wasting, or loss of muscle tissue, and 30% of these patients die from this condition. New research in mice finds that the severity of ...
Nov. 29, 2022 — While it may seem common knowledge that smoking is bad for your lungs, if and how ultrafine particles present in cigarette smoke impact the development and progression of lung cancer remains unclear. ...
Nov. 15, 2022 — Airway inflammation and emphysema are more common in marijuana smokers than cigarette smokers, according to a new study. Researchers said the difference may be due to the way that marijuana is smoked ...
Nov. 8, 2022 — Scientists investigating the mechanics of the early stages of lung cancer have identified a new potential treatment, which could also aid early detection of the disease. Levels of a key protein -- ...
Oct. 25, 2022 — A new study has revealed significant racial disparities in how quickly minorities with the most common form of lung cancer receive potentially lifesaving radiation therapy compared with their white ...
Oct. 6, 2022 — This year, about 200,000 people will be diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer, the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease. Researchers are working to improve the odds for ...
Sep. 28, 2022 — Despite significant advances, mortality from brain tumors remains high with five-year survival rates of 36%. More accurate diagnoses might improve the situation, but tissue biopsies are invasive and ...
Sep. 21, 2022 — The majority of the socioeconomic disparity, or deprivation gap, in cancer incidence could have been prevented in England between 2013 and 2017 if nobody had smoked, according to a new ...
Sep. 16, 2022 — In Germany, about ten per cent of all children are born before the 37th week of pregnancy and are thus considered premature. Many of these premature babies require help with breathing due to their ...
Sep. 13, 2022 — Researchers used extensive single-cell analysis to create a spatial map of tumor-infiltrating B cells and plasma cells in early-stage lung cancers, revealing new roles for these immune cells in ...
Sep. 13, 2022 — A new mechanism has been identified through which very small pollutant particles in the air may trigger lung cancer in people who have never smoked, paving the way to new prevention approaches and ...
Sep. 1, 2022 — About 30,000 cases of lung cancer occur in Spain each year. Mutations in KRAS oncogenes account for 10-15% of these cases, a subgroup against which there are still no effective therapies. Researchers ...
Aug. 31, 2022 — An experimental combination of two drugs halts the progression of small cell lung cancer, the deadliest form of lung cancer, according to a study in ...
Aug. 9, 2022 — More females than males who have never smoked have lung cancer and increasing evidence indicates that air pollution may be a major risk factor for these ...
July 20, 2022 — Scientists have found that using immunotherapy alongside a drug that blocks a common gene mutation in lung cancer could be a promising new combination therapy for certain types of lung tumors. Their ...
July 18, 2022 — Researchers have found a new way to track metastatic cancer cells in the body, which in the future could help identify cancer earlier and give patients more treatment ...
July 14, 2022 — Treatment for lung cancer has improved in recent years, and a new study has found how to make it even more effective for all ...
July 12, 2022 — Offering intensive, weekly telephone-based cessation counseling along with nicotine replacement for people who smoke and who were undergoing screening for lung cancer resulted in over a two-fold ...
June 14, 2022 — A study shows a strong relationship between prolonged exposure to low levels of radon and lung cancer, indicating a need for enhanced protection measures. Radon gas in the air decays into tiny ...
June 3, 2022 — Nearly 43% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose lung cancers harbored a specific KRAS mutation responded to the experimental drug adagrasib, and the targeted agent also showed ...
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Friday, September 16, 2022
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Monday, July 18, 2022
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Friday, June 3, 2022
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Monday, April 25, 2022
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Monday, April 11, 2022
Thursday, April 7, 2022
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Friday, January 7, 2022
Thursday, December 16, 2021
Monday, December 13, 2021
Thursday, December 9, 2021
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Monday, September 20, 2021
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Monday, September 6, 2021
Friday, September 3, 2021
Monday, August 23, 2021
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Thursday, July 8, 2021
Monday, June 28, 2021
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Monday, December 14, 2020
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Friday, October 16, 2020
Friday, September 25, 2020
Thursday, September 17, 2020
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Comments
Post a Comment