From my late night internet wanderings, I knew that chemotherapy and radiation would beat the cancer back for a time, a few months, perhaps four, and then the cancer would start growing again, spread quickly to his spine and brain and would kill him within a matter of weeks. It took three. Three weeks from the time the doctor said the words “hospice” and “palliative” and Niles heard “radiation,” he was dead.

Eli Lilly and Company will unveil data from 57 studies at the 46th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, Ill. from June 4 – 8, 2010, during which the company will present the latest research results on ALIMTA(R) (pemetrexed for injection) and GEMZAR(R) (gemcitabine HCl for injection), as well as ERBITUX(R) (cetuximab) with partners Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck-Serono.

Of note are two Phase II ALIMTA studies (ASCO Abstracts #7082 and #7087), which both evaluate ALIMTA plus platinum-based chemotherapy in combination with concurrent radiation therapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Several studies evaluating GEMZAR in combination with other potential therapies are also slated for presentation at the meeting.

Women of every age know the threat that breast cancer poses. Girls grow up watching their mothers march against it, and that activism has brought much needed resources and attention to the disease. Yet the cancer that kills more women each year than breast, ovarian and cervical cancers combined is lung cancer. Because it was once mostly a male disease, and because it is associated with smoking, women assume if they never smoked, or if they stopped years ago, they don’t need to be on the lookout for this deadly cancer.

But they do. Two-thirds of lung cancer’s female victims quit at least a decade earlier or never smoked at all.

Lung cancer kills more Americans than most other forms of cancer combined. Many of the victims never smoked. It happened to a doctor in Santa Monica, who suddenly became a patient. He wants to tell his story so we all pay more attention to this deadly disease.

Dr. Michael Weitz, an E.R. physician in Santa Monica, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer in 2006. His initial prognosis: 4-6 months to live. He underwent surgery to remove his left lung, chemotherapy and radiation as well. These aggressive therapies, while slowing the growth of his cancer, did not stop it. His cancer was continuing to grow and spread.

The fact that Susie Vedantham Nagpal became the first Indian-American elected to the Saratoga City Council was an afterthought to her, said friends and relatives.

“I don’t think she ran on that platform,” said her husband, Amit. “She ran on a platform of being a community contributor. And she wanted to make a difference.”

Nagpal died early Thursday morning of lung cancer, exactly seven months after her diagnosis. She was 46.

Jayshree Ullal, her older sister, called Nagpal “a people person,” and a sister to many.

People who are diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) now have more treatment options, used in more combinations, than ever before. Although this presents a better possibility for curing lung cancer than even a few years ago, it can be confusing for a newly diagnosed patient.

To help you understand some of the basics of your cancer care, WebMD’s lung cancer experts help provide an overview of the three main types of treatments for NSCLC: surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is being used in new ways to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NCSLC). Until a few years ago, only patients with late-stage lung cancer received chemotherapy to help prolong life. Now, chemotherapy is given at earlier stages, in addition to other treatments, to slow the progression of cancer and to help cure the disease.

“Chemotherapy has dramatically improved in the last decade,” says George R. Simon, MD, FACP, FCCP, director of thoracic oncology Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “Doctors have more chemotherapy drugs to choose from and many have fewer side effects.”

Every hour 19 people will die of lung cancer. But the stigma that only smokers get lung cancer is slowing the effort to get money to fight the disease. One in five women diagnosed, never smoked. As mother’s day approaches, we show you one daughter’s effort to figure out, Where’s the Funding?

A new report on lung cancer in women has been published by the Women’s Health Policy and Advocacy Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Called “Out of the Shadows,” the report seeks to raise awareness about lung cancer, currently the leading cause of cancer death in women, and more importantly, to increase funding for research for its prevention, detection and treatment. (Thanks to Booster Shots, the LA Times‘ fabulous health blog, for highlighting the report.) I encourage you to read the report, which is well written and comprehensive.

For a more scientific summary of the issues, I would point you to December’s Seminars in Oncology, a special issue devoted to lung cancer in women.

Dr. Costanzo Di Perna, a thoracic surgeon at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, seeks to dispel the notion that lung cancer means certain death.

The prevailing attitude among victims of the disease and some doctors, he said, is “nihilistic.”

“They think everybody dies. It’s not true. We have to prove that it’s an untruth, when lung cancer is caught early and taken out early,” he said.