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Posted

Cheers to ........ Medical science and it's common courtesy, humanity and empathy ........

Have you ever said "if they didn't smoke "before" they wouldn't be in this mess?" or "never smoked....how could this be?" This is a report from this morning .... I know it will be available to view today for sure!!!!

http://www.ctv.ca/canadaam

Under "More Stories" ........... choose "Doctor, survivor take aim at lung cancer stigma"

Posted

Thanks for the post. I found it very interesting. I have a problem with what makes up the 85% they claim are smoke related cancers. I quit smoking over 30 years ago, but on my medical records it states Heavy Smoker. Then I took Tarceva that is not supposed to respond well in smokers and I have a great response. So am I a smoker or not? I think that I should be in the non smoker group for their dumb statistics. I think things are skewed toward making more toward the smokers.

Thanks again.

Stay positive, :lol:

Ernie

Posted

All hands for Ernie .......... You are a non-smoker and by all rights with 10 years healing a pack a day smoker you've earned a third lung. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing .... here's your reward Ernie ... a brand new shinny lung ... just strap it on!

Tammy

Posted

My friend is an oncologist sales rep for sanofi-aventis in central and north jersey she has morristown memorial, sloan kettering outpatient in basking ridge nj, robert wood johnson, umdnj, and beth isreal. According to her the majority of the oncologists that she deals with are very concerned with the amount of lung cancer that is diagnosed amongst people especially women in the 44-65 year old age group that have never smoked before. I would assume that this means that the environment we live in has alot of determnation in what diseases we encounter in diffeent parts of the country.

Rob

Posted

Ernie,

I agree with your point about never-smokers and remote prior smokers. The issue about never-smokers has been that they are a group that pretty consistently shows a major benefit from Tarceva, while results in current or prior smokers tend to be less consistent. However, it has been observed that people who quit smoking decades ago, especially people who didn't smoke more than 10 or 15 "pack-years" in total (the product of number of packs per day smoked x number of years smoking) often have the EGFR mutation and can do as well as never-smokers on Tarceva. So there are people who happened to smoke a long time ago but really developed the "never-smoker" kind of lung cancer, probably just by random bad luck. If anyone is interested, in the post attached with the link that follows, there is a slide/figure that includes a table showing increasing likelihood of having the EGFR mutation as more time elapses since quitting smoking:

http://onctalk.com/2006/11/22/never-smo ... treatment/

And yes, many of us are seeing lots of never-smokers, seemingly in growing numbers, and especially women. In the northwest, where I practice, about 25-30% of my lung cancer practice is never-smokers, disproportionately Asian women, for reasons we don't understand.

Posted
disproportionately Asian women, for reasons we don't understand.

An interesting article was posted here about the carcinogens from stir frying foods.

I'm not being stereotypical, just stating an experience. I had an asian friend I would help with taxes. Every time I went there, her mom was in the kitchen stir frying EVERYTHING. The house smelled fryed. Could it be the ethnic cooking is contributing to these patient's condition. Maybe a little informal inquisition of these patients?

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