Healthy FOR YOUR LUNGS

Early cancer detection and treatment advances are extending lives. Plus, how to safeguard your lungs during COVID-19.

ung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death of men and women in the U.S. In 2020 alone, an estimated 1.8 million cases will be diagnosed, claiming the lives of about 600,000 people.

Though lung cancer is challenging to treat, the news is not all grim, says James Stevenson, M.D., a medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center. A brand-new study from researchers at the National Cancer Institute ÀiÛi> Ã > Ã >À« > ` Ã} wV> Ì drop in mortality rates in the last few years for the most common type of lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for 76 percent of lung cancers.

A big factor in the decline? Smoking is at an all-time low. But there’s more: “New advances in early detection and treatment are giving people new hope and extending lives,” Stevenson says.

LSCREENING

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT), which uses less radiation than a traditional chest CT, is the only recommended screening test for lung cancer and has been found to reduce the risk of death by 20 percent.

“Annual screening for highrisk individuals has become an accepted practice and should be considered as routine as a woman getting a mammogram,” says Stevenson. “The screening is covered by many insurers, and Medicare for those who are eligible.” Who falls into the “high-risk” category? Heavy smokers or former smokers (those who have quit in the past 15 years) who smoked an average of one pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years.

PREVENTION

Although it has been many years since the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was discovered, smoking is still the number one risk for lung cancer, responsible for between 80 and 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. (Pipes and cigars also increase the risk.)

A smoker is 15 to 30 times more likely to get or die from lung cancer compared with a nonsmoker—and even a few cigarettes a day ups risk.

On the positive side, quitting at any age can lower lung cancer risks. Within minutes of your last puff, your body rebounds with a lower heart rate and blood pressure.

While you can’t lower every risk factor—like having a family history of lung cancer—you can reduce your exposure to air pollution, radiation and secondhand smoke and avoid environmental toxins like radon and asbestos. And though it’s not entirely clear that eating a healthy diet and being physically active can decrease risk, it certainly can’t hurt your general health; nor can masking up to protect against COVID-19 and Ãi>Ã > yÕ°

TREATMENT

There was a time when the only options to treat lung cancer were radiation, chemotherapy, surgery or a combination. Today, breakthrough advances have reduced the number of lung cancer deaths and helped people survive disease-free for longer periods of time. Here are two of them:

Immunotherapy (Biologic

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Therapy) Cancer cells are skillful at evading the immune system’s natural ability to eradicate foreign invaders. But immunotherapy is changing all that: It can outsmart out-of-control cancer cells by powering up the body’s immune system to seek out and destroy them.

The therapy, heralded in 2016 and 2017 as the “Advance of the Year” by the American

Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), is used alone or in combination with other treatments and is a game-changer: “We’ve seen things we wouldn’t

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years ago,” says Stevenson. “Many advanced-stage lung cancer patients are enjoying longer remissions or even cures—results almost never seen in the past.”

Targeted Therapy This class of drugs is for people with

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tions. The therapy shuts off signals the mutation is sending to cause the cancer to grow. These abnormalities can be found through biomarker testing, which examines changes in the tumor’s DNA. “For these cancers, targeted therapies can be more effective than chemotherapy or immunotherapy, allowing for a more personalized approach,” says Stevenson.

Visit Parade.com/lungs for the best foods to eat for healthy lungs.