Early screening best weapon for fighting lung cancer
LUNG cancer remains the Philippines’ number one cause of cancer deaths among men and number three among women, topped only by cancers of the breast and the cervix, according to a report by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.
The biggest factor determining lung cancer risk is smoking. A whopping 80%–90% of lung cancer incidences are estimated to be smoking related. Therefore, the biggest thing you can do for yourself to avoid lung cancer is to completely avoid all cigarettes and cigarette smoke.
But what if, without you knowing it, prevention is no longer an option? What if the cancer is already there?
This is what happened to the father of TV and media personality Diego Castro that prompted him to become an ambassador of the multi-stakeholder movement, “Hope from Within: Test, Talk, and Take Action” — a lung cancer awareness, education, and prevention campaign. Specifically, for lung cancer, it is important for those at high risk to get screened so that the disease can be addressed immediately, according to Dr. Ivy de Dios, oncology medical adviser of global biopharmaceutical company MSD in the Philippines.
The American Cancer Society recommends yearly lung cancer screening to people aged 55 to 74 years old, who have smoked one pack per day for 30 years or two packs a day for 15 years, and whose last cigarette was smoked less than 15 years ago.
Those who should primarily consider getting screened are high-risk individuals such as smokers. “Any persistent cough should be looked into,” she reminded. The screening test involves a low-dose CT scan of the chest. Any mass identified for biopsy will also then be analyzed by a pathologist for particular proteins.
The recommended first step in lung cancer screening is low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan. X-ray may still be used in some places, but CT scans are much better at detecting developing cancer tumors and provide the best benefit towards cancer survival.
If cancer is confirmed, the doctor can begin treatment, either through surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or a combination of these treatment approaches. But these days, the pathologist can do much more than just say whether it is cancer. The pathologist can actually describe the specific characteristics of the cancer cells to allow doctors to customize treatment even more.
By identifying whether this particular lung cancer comes with a certain gene mutation or a specific protein proliferation, trailblazing cancer treatments such as targeted immunotherapy become possible. These treatments drastically increase the patient’s chance of going into remission with fewer adverse events than, say, a standard chemotherapy regimen.
An example of medication used for targeted immunotherapy is pembrolizumab which is used as first-line treatment for latestage non–small-cell lung cancer that has a protein called PD-L1 (programmed death ligand) and no abnormal EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) or ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) genes. Targeted therapies are also available for patients with mutated EGFR or ALK genes.