By Time Magazine Staff

DNA from lung tumors is an especially powerful tool for treatment. Here’s how it helps

ALBANY, Ga. — Even though she has a medical degree herself, Dr. Deborah Morosini did not realize the true impact of lung cancer until one of her loved ones perished from it.
Now she is making an attempt to raise awareness on a public level.
Morosini, sister of the late Dana Reeve and a pathologist at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, paid a visit to the Phoebe Cancer Center Thursday afternoon to give an address on how lung cancer impacts women.
Morosini was inspired to educate others on the subject by both her sister and late brother-in-law, actor Christopher Reeve. Dana Reeve, a non-smoker, died from stage-four lung cancer within a year of being widowed.
“In my mind, Dana was not the typical lung cancer patient,” Morosini said. “All she had was a light cough.
“Advocacy groups reached out for my help, and I thought: ‘I’m a doctor — how do I not know that lung cancer is a major cancer killer?’ ”

ALK-positive, never-smoker, patients with lung adenocarcinoma at double risk to experience disease progression or recurrence within 5 years of initial diagnosis

Dr Ping Yang from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, and colleagues, reported the findings today at the European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology (EMCTO) in Lugano.

Approximately 8% – 12% of patients with lung adenocarcinoma who have never smoked cigarettes carry tumors that express a protein product called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), Dr Yang said. “This subset of patients are at more than double the risk of experiencing disease progression or recurrence within 5 years of initial diagnosis compared to never-smokers whose lung adenocarcinoma tumors are ALK-negative.”

Dozens of doctors convened in Merced on Wednesday night to hear the latest on lung cancer and the plans to improve patients’ outcomes.

Dr. Heather Wakelee, an assistant professor for the Oncology Department at Stanford University, gave a talk about a comprehensive review of current standards in therapy for all stages of non-small-cell lung cancer and the results of the latest research that promises to improve the clinical outcomes of patients.

About 35 oncologists and family practitioners from the area attended the event at El Portal Comprehensive Cancer Center.

When Martha McCann Lesnick’s granddaughter was about 6 years old, she asked her grandmother about the yellow LiveStrong wristband she wore.

Lesnick explained that she wore it because she was fighting lung cancer. Her granddaughter replied: “oh yeah, that’s because…what did you do?”

“She was talking about smoking,” says Lesnick, a Nashville songwriter and four-year lung cancer survivor.

“We all know that Donna Cronister is special, but let me tell you why she is my personal angel,” said Debra Frank, Radiology administrative associate for the 3D Lab and Drs. Sandy Napel and David Paik. “When I was mailing a card to Donna in thanks for her help on a project, I tripped near the mail boxes on Palm Drive, and I fell, injuring my knee and arm. I had to have stitches to close the cut on my knee as well as a chest X-ray for the pain in my arm.” Because her general practitioner thought he saw something suspicious on the chest X-ray, Debra was sent to Stanford for a CT scan in November of 2007. “If it wasn’t for our Stanford radiologists, I might not be as healthy as I am today. Almost from my first scan, they thought I could have lung cancer.”

When it comes to advocacy and research money, the leading cancer killer in the United States — lung cancer — clearly gets short shrift. People with the disease are commonly assumed to have brought it upon themselves by smoking. And the 10 percent to 15 percent of lung cancer patients who never smoked are typically tarred with the same brush.

There are two things wrong here, according to clinicians who treat this killer of nearly 160,000 people a year — more than deaths from cancers of the breast, prostate and colon combined.

One is the element of blame, as if all smokers who get lung cancer began smoking and continued to smoke knowing the possible consequences.

Oncimmune offers a blood test for the early diagnosis of lung cancer.

Reporting in the New York Times, Jane Brody notes that the leading cancer killer in the United States — lung cancer — gets short shrift in both advocacy and funding. “People with the disease are commonly assumed to have brought it upon themselves by smoking. And the 10 to 15 percent of lung cancer patients who never smoked are typically tarred with the same brush.”

The blame that society puts on lung cancer patients could seriously impede attention and research funding on the disease, a local expert says.

“It gets 3 per cent of the total research funding for all cancers, and yet it is the No. 1 killer,” says Dr. James Gowing, a Flamborough doctor and cochair of the Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada (CACC).

Once again I hear the excitement in the headlines – cancer death rates are dropping.

But for me the news feels bittersweet. Reading through the report elicited feelings reminiscent of those I felt when I once attended a baby shower and a funeral on the same day.

First the expectant news – and it is exciting. Cancer death rates in the U.S. dropped 2% for men during the period from 2001 to 2006, and 1.5% for women from 2002 to 2006. This represents a decline in the death rate from the 4 major cancers in both men and women, except…

The somber news. Lung cancer deaths in women continue to increase, though they appear to be stabilizing.