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Hello, I just discovered this sight! I’m from Canada. Diagnosed with NSCLC with RET Fusion approx 1 1/2 year ago. Sent a lung biopsy to Foundation Medicine in US. Non-smoker 55 years old. I researched RET fusion can be caused by long term exposure to Radon. We tested our home along with multiple family members and we found Radon in all our homes at varying levels, some were found to have very worrisome levels (1000bq/m3). We mitigated the homes with high radon, being a highly carcinogenic gas. Is Radon on peoples radar in this forum? I have found most of my acquaintances including those in the medical profession lack awareness. 

takeactiononradon

evictradon

 

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Howdy, R, and welcome. Yes, I've learned that radon is the number 2 cause of lung cancer, after smoking. The silence around radon is alarming. And the fact that the measurements taken in one's basement can fluctuate widely, even from day to day, is also worrying. Our house was fine when we moved in, and then stopped bing fine. We have since mitigated and are breathing a little easier now. I wrote about radon on my blog; I feel like a spend time mentioning radon in conversations whenever it seems natural. 

I also want to share the caution my pulmonologist offered me in the days I was mentally thrashing about, trying to figure out how I got stupid lung cancer. He told me there was no real way to know and that I would make myself nuts trying to figure it out. I've since decided there are more than a half-dozen contributing factors; once I named them, I slowly let that effort to know go. 

Glad you're here.

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Hi Karen,

Thank you for your response and comments. I have been in conversation with leading radon experts in Canada/world. Alan Whitehead Radoncorp and Dr. Aaron Goodarzi both highly educated on radon. I tested all my previous homes and they all had radon. I have a RET fusion which is linked to long term radon exposure. The medical community is not a good resource for info. Glad you checked your home. I would recommend getting a Radoneye thru Radoncorp. It is a digital monitor that gives you 24/7 readings. You are right about fluctuations in readings and the silence on radon. My community is providing radon pucks through “Take Action on Radon” due to our findings as a private citizen who are raising the alarm on radon. Energy efficient and air tight homes will drive up the radon and more people will get diagnosed with lung cancer,  if we don’t all wake up.  I especially worry about our children. 

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When we sold my childhood (and adult) home 8 years ago, a required radon test detected radon in the basement. No surprise, it was an older home in the Northeast. But I was the only person in the family who got lung cancer. Turns out that my EGFR+ lung cancer was presumably caused by post-9/11 toxic exposure. 

Like Karen said, you could drive yourself nuts trying to figure out the cause. The fact is that our DNA happened to get messed up, possibly by environmental causes. Don't blame yourself. In the last 3 years, I've let go of worry, regret and blaming myself. My cancer journey has not been easy but I actually consider myself very fortunate. 

By the way, here in the U.S., the American Lung Association endeavors to raise awareness of radon:

https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/indoor-air-pollutants/radon

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My husband was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year.  I of course wanted to understand why, and had our house tested for radon.  It was high.  We've since had it mitigated.  But it's difficult not knowing if that was the cause of his cancer.  We had lived in the home for the prior 10 years and raised our now teenagers here.  Currently my plan is for myself and the kids to get chest x rays annually to try to monitor just in case it was the radon.  Very scary.  In the area where I live people don't seem to know much about radon, and the doctors I have mentioned it to never really comment or don't seem very familiar with it.  I bought the RadonEye monitor to keep an eye on the levels going forward.

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Hi CH29,

Wondering what your radon readings were in your home?
 

Did your husband get tested for a RET fusion by sending a lung biopsy to Foundation Medicine? RET fusions and radon seem to be linked. I have read research papers stating the radioactive gas causes chromosome breakage from long term radon exposure. If your husband has a RET fusion he can be treated with targeted therapy ie:Selpercatinib. My husband smoked for 40 plus years and we have lived together for 40 years. My husband CT scan shows no lung cancer. I am genetically predisposed to lung cancer.  I never smoked and husband did not smoke in home. Good for you for checking your home for radon and mitigating. 

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Hi,

Two of our tests came back at 13 pCi/l for the 48-hour average.  At this point I bought the electronic detector while waiting for the mitagation, and saw it go as high as 44 pCi/l during a storm.  My husband is a 45 year old non smoker with no family cancer history.  I've never heard of RET but will definitely ask his oncologist about this.  So glad I came across this post!

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Hi - Just a follow up to my note above.  I went back and looked at the pathology results and they did test for RET but it came back negative.  The only thing found was an uncommon ALK deletion mutation; however not one that qualified for a targeted therapy.  

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I first became acquainted with Radon and its mitigation in the mid 1980s. At that time, I was a US Army Civil Engineer stationed in Michigan and a paper was published in ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) that identified the presence of Radon Gas in a rock formation called the Canadian Shield. This formation is bedrock found throughout Canada and extending south into northern US states. Michigan, especially the Upper Peninsula (UP), was identified as an area of concern. Also identified were northeast states including Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, parts of New York state. Midwestern states including Minnesota, North Dakota and Western states including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, northern Idaho and Washington State, particularly in the Puget Sound area, were also cited as high concentrations areas. If you live or work in a high-rise building, you may encounter very high concentrations of radon gas because the foundations of "skyscrapers" are build deep into bedrock. Cities of Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, and New York City, particularly Manhattan, are known to be areas of high radon concentration. 

Radon Gas is the decay of radioactive metals (radium, thorium and uranium) that were common in the earth's crust in high concentrations about 4 billion years ago. They've since been covered by sedimentary rocks but these rocks were scoured by intense glaciation in Canada and the northern US starting about 2 million years ago and ending about 100,000 years ago (the ice was a mile thick in the US during the last advance and resulted in the formation of the upper Mississippi river system including the Ohio and Missouri rivers). Radon is so dangerous because it is odorless and invisible. If you live in one of the areas in Canada or the northern tier of the US and your home has a basement, you should have your home tested for radon gas. These days one can get a test kit online. It is a small cardboard box one places in the basement for several months, then mails to the laboratory for analysis.

Radon is second only to smoking as a leading cause of lung cancer. Now with reduced smoking, Radon, in the areas where it occurs, is the leading cause of lung cancer. Fortunately, protection against Radon is a very easy and inexpensive fix sometimes as easy as opening a basement window or installing small fan that ventilates basement air to the outside. We found Radon in Army family housing quarters at Armed Forces installations in Michigan and installed basement ventilation systems.

Stay the course.

Tom

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CH29,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5728036/

Was your husband’s lung biopsy tested at Foundation Medicine? They provide a thorough  follow up report with targeted drug of choice and information on clinical trials. 


Your Radon levels were high. That is concerning. Have you told your local authorities being public health or City Mayor?

We have noticed the same with Radon levels increasing significantly when there is a storm or weather change.
 

Your husband is lucky to have you on his team. 

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Hi Tom, 

Thank you for the great information.  In BC, Canada we have radon rough in’s in our building code east of the Rocky Mountains being area 2. This sounds like it correlates to the info you provided. Area 1 does not have radon rough in’s in the building code due to lack of testing. We discovered very high radon readings in multiple homes 60 plus in south west BC - Vancouver area.  The Canadian government is aware of radon but is not educating public to test. In light of our zero net carbon mandate by 2030, radioactive gas (radon) levels will rise significantly in our air tight homes which will be slowly killing us, our children, and pets.  As a side note the federal government is checking federal owned buildings - prisons and border buildings to protect from liability. radon-map.jpg
 

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Thank you for the information you shared.  We did receive a report with drug options, although not through Foundation Medicine to my knowledge.  I'll check into the foundation. I've also notified local and state contacts about the radon, as well as neighbors, and even used my own detector to check their own homes (no one has come close to the levels in my own home).  Too bad it's not a real estate requirement to have the levels checked upon purchasing a home here. Take care!!

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