I am sure as pathologist, you are very familiar with adenocarcinoma, pleural effusion, EML4-ALK fusion, EGFR-tk mutation, and all the ugliest LC terms.
Do you know that today, 60% of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients are nonsmokers who either never smoked one cigarette in their lifetime or who have quit smoking more than a decade ago?
Do you understand by labeling lung cancer as a smoker's disease/curse, that lung cancer research receives less 1/10 of funds breast cancer research receives, while lung cancer mortality is much higher? In fact, out of the 160,000 or so died of lung cancer in the US every year, at least 30,000 are none/never smokers, and the proportion is changing rapidly. Most of the LC patients in the Chinese communities across America are never smokers, many of them in their prime years or even their youth. Most of them did not live long enough to tell their story of suffering, lack of effective treatments, frustration and anger of having a cursed "smokers" disease.
Now as a professional and pathologist in excellence, you can do more to help the under-served. After all, mixed adenocarcinoma with squamous carcinoma is no longer the mainstream diagnosis, and both NIH and ACS lied about smoking causing 90% of lung cancers.
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About Saratan
- www.inspire.com/Saratan
- 46 years old, Female, Divorced
- Granada Hills, California
- Joined August 30, 2010
My daughter was 22 when she had a car accident and when they were taking X-rays to make sure she is ok, they found a big shadow in her left lower lung (tennis ball size). So, we followed up with a thoracic surgeon who recommended surgery. Following the surgery some pathologists believed that it was not cancer and some said it was. Finally, the send the tumor to NY and it was confirmed to be NSCLC stage IIIA. All of us as well as the doctors were surprised because she had no symptoms. She was a non-smoker, fit, healthy young girl and there was no scientific reasoning as to where this cancer came from. She received 4 cycle of chemo and was doing good for 3 years. All my friends and family believed that she was mis-diagnosed in the first place. On April on this year, when she was 2 months short of getting her Master in Bio-Medical Science, she called me and told me that she was in lot of pain and could not breath easily. I took her to ER, they got chest X-Ray and found out she had Plural Effusion. Because of her history, they removed the fluid right away and send it for pathology. The result was positive for cancer. We came back to her oncologist who told us this time the cancer would not go away and doesn't matter how many cycle of chemo she gets, the cancer will come back over and over. So, they wanted to put her on studies (they always get excited to have her on different study because of her age and condition). We decided to go with alternative treatment. We went to Mexico (Hope4cancer clinic), spend $30,000 in 2 weeks. She was feeling better until she start complaining of severe back pain. Went to ER, got MRI of spine, the cancer spread to her spine and had we not gone to the hospital, she would have been paralized from T9. Went back to oncologist who did radiation of the back for 3 weeks, she lost 20 lbs and spend the whole time in the hospital because of vomiting. In the hospital, she had lot of headaches, did MRI of the brain, she had mets to her brain. So, she did radiation to the brain for one week (we have to wait one month before another MRI)...So, now she is doing chemo...Her oncologist wants to put her on Crizotinib study, I read about it and I am hoping it will work for her (she was negative for EGFR , but positive for Alk)..She is depressed, not talking to her friends, not moving from her bed, just watching TV all day. Refuse to see a therapist, doesn't want to be part of a cancer group, and is so attached to me that I can't leave her alone for more that 5-10 mins.
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