The Two Most Surprising Risk Factors for Lung Cancer
Worldwide about 2,100,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer every year. Approximately 85% of them have used tobacco products. Most are older and in poor health. It’s an insidious disease that few people survive long term.
However, in the last few decades, doctors have noticed a surprising uptick in younger, relatively healthy people with no history of smoking being diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. About 15% of all people diagnosed every year (315,000 worldwide) have no known lung cancer risk factors.
In 2005 Christopher Reeves beautiful, young widow Dana made headlines when she received a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis only one year after Christopher’s tragic death. She was 45 years old had no history of smoking. The devastating news blindsided her family.
She died six months later, just a few days shy of her 46th birthday. She left a 13-year-old boy orphaned.
How could this happen? Doctors tell us that tobacco use can cause lung cancer. True. But she had two risk factors that all of us share:
She had a pulse.
She had lungs.
These are genuinely the most significant risk factors for lung cancer. If you have both, you are at risk for lung cancer.
The next person diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer could be your best friend, parents, children, or yourself. Even if you have no history of smoking.
ALK-Positive Lung Cancer: How It’s Different
Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a common type of lung cancer. In rare cases, people with NSCLC have an “ALK rearrangement.” Your doctor will call you ALK-positive. This gene mutation is more common in younger, healthy females with little or no tobacco use. But anyone can be diagnosed with it regardless of gender or age.
The Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK for short) gene tells your body how to make proteins that help cells communicate. If you have ALK+ lung cancer, part of this gene becomes fragmented and attached to another gene. This gene (and often others) is mutated. This boosts your risk for several types of cancers-- including lung cancer.
Other common mutations are EGFR, TP53, and KRAS. Doctors treat each mutation with different drugs and therapies. It’s estimated that 60% of all lung cancers have one or more mutated genes involved.
What does this mean for treatment?
Current Treatments and Therapies are Getting Personal
Recently, “personalized medicine “is generating hope for people with lung cancer, especially NSCLC patients with a gene rearrangement.
“Personalized medicine” includes scrutinizing cells obtained in a biopsy to see if there are genetic mutations linked to your tumor. As mentioned, tumors in almost 60% of patients with certain lung cancers are found to have mutations.
Chemotherapy drugs are then tailored to tumors with specific mutations. Molecular analysis of the tumor (also called genomic testing) helps determine which therapies and medicines are most likely to be beneficial.
Genetic testing is becoming routine for patients with non-small cell lung cancer. But not every doctor orders the test, so you must insist on testing. Based on the mutations found and the cancer stage, you may have surgery, radiation, or medicine taken orally at home.
Currently, this is no cure for ALK+ lung cancer. Therapies used today only slow the progression. Invariably, the cancer returns.
But there is hope for the future….
Outlook and Hope for the Future
ALK-Positive is a patient-driven group with 2000+ individuals from 50 different countries (and growing every day). We support high-impact research to improve and prolong the lives of people diagnosed with ALK+ lung cancer.
We believe we can turn this fatal disease into one where patients either have a high long-term survival rate or are cured. The median survival rate has more than doubled in the last few years due to advances in care and therapies.
We think we can do better.
Our community has raised over $1,600,000 for research and clinical trials exploring exciting new therapies. This includes a vaccine that works with your body’s immune system and research into overcoming ALK resistance that leads to disease progression.
November Is Lung Cancer Awareness Month—How You Can Help
Every day, brave battles against ALK+ lung cancer are fought. Families are wounded, lives are changed forever.
This disease knows no socioeconomic, racial, gender, or age barriers. Every day brings new trials and findings to extend lives and change the narrative. This is where you come in.
Research and treatment come at a price, and it’s a steep one.
Regrettably, lung cancer is grossly underfunded because of the stigma of being a “smoker’s disease.” But that’s far from reality. We know anyone can suffer from lung cancer; all it takes is a pulse and set of lungs. Battling back is what those with ALK+ lung cancer must do. And you can be part of the fight.
Thanks to groundbreaking therapies, ALK+ patients are living longer and living better than ever. But there is still much work to be done, and we need your help today. Our goal is to turn ALK+ lung cancer into a condition where people have a high chance of long-term survival.
Researchers believe this is a possibility in the future. We need that future today. You help by sharing this blog, getting involved, and making a monetary donation today for much-needed research.
Remember, the only lung cancer risk factors you need to be affected is a pulse and set of lungs.
Donate now.
AUTHOR: Lori Mang