Face of lung cancer — once older men with a history of smoking — has changed significantly

Many lung cancers are now found in non-smokers, and scientists want to know why.

According to the headline of a story by Nina Agrawal and Allison Jiang in The New York Times early this week, "the face of lung cancer — once older men with a history of smoking — has changed." Significantly.

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the United States, notes the article that then goes on to say that "the disease's incidence and death rates have dropped over the last few decades, thanks largely to a decline in cigarette use, but lung cancers unrelated to smoking have persisted."

Worldwide, "roughly 10 to 25 percent of lung cancers now occur in people who have never smoked," the piece continues, "Among certain groups of Asian and Asian American women, that share is estimated to be 50 per cent or more."

Dr. Maria Teresa Landi

The thinking used to be that smoking was "almost the only cause of lung cancer," the story quotes Dr. Maria Teresa Landi, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. 

Landi is studying "the role that environmental exposure, genetic mutations, or other risk factors might play. She and other researchers "have already found some early hints, including a clear link to air pollution," Agrawal and Jiang's article states.

The piece also quotes Dr. Heather Wakelee, chief of oncology  at the Stanford University School of Medicine, to the effect that "we all still think about the Marlboro man as whaat lung cancer looks like." 

In many cases, however, that's no longer the case. "We're just baffled as to why," Wakelee adds.

One large study led by Landi and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, the Times story reports, "is looking at the mutational signatures, or patterns of mutations across the cancer genomes, of 871 non-smokers with lung cancer from around the world."

Their latest findings from the study, dubbed Sherlock Lung and published in Nature this month, "showed that certain mutations, or changes to DNA, were much more common in people who lived in areas with high amounts of air pollution —  for example, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Uzbekistan," the article says.

More information on the multiple kinds of cancer can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at caregivers. I am, in fact, hard at work on a second edition. 

My other books are Mystery Dates — How to keep the sizzle in our relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of my newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that I co-authored with my then 8-year-old granddaughter. Check out my blog at https://woodyweingarten.com for more info on them.

Cutting-edge cancer therapy offers hope for cure for patients with lupus, New York Times reports

A relatively new treatment called CAR T-cell therapy appears to stop lupus in its tracks, according to a recent story by Nina Agrawal in The New York Times.

Her article explains that the treatment is "a kind of 'living drug' that modifies patients' immune cells to help them attack misbehaving ones."

Agrawal's piece quotes Dr. Lisa Sammaritano, a rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery — Weill Cornell Medicine and the lead author of a set of recently updated guidelines for lupus treatment, as saying, "It's really promising, and honestly the first therapy that we've talked about as a cure. [Until now] we haven't had a cure — we've had control." 

She adds a major caveat, to the effect that she's "hoping that it's a common future therapy, but we're not at the point yet where we can say that with confidence."

CAR T-cell therapy, the Times story notes, is one that "must be personalized to each patient [and therefore] is extraordinarily expensive." One-time costs approach half a million dollars or more.

Symptoms of lupus typically appear between the ages of 15 and 44, with 90 percent of the 3 million patients worldwide being women.

Dr. Meghan Sise

Half of lupus patients, the Agrawal story says, "have inflammation in their kidneys, a condition known as lupus nephritis. Between 10 and 30 percent of these patients will eventually need dialysis or a kidney transplant transplant, [says] Dr. Meghan Sise, the director of onconephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital."

Dr. April Barnado

The disease can cause joint pain, rashes, severe fatigue, and inflammation in organs, the story quotes Dr.. April Barnado, rheumatologist and assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as saying.

It often strikes, she adds, "at a time when women are raising families, or they're caregiving, or they're trying to get promoted at work. They wake up and feel like they have the flu or a viral infection a few days a week every week. That's pretty debilitating."

Lupus, formally labeled systemic lupus erythematosus, according to the article "is an autoimmune condition in which he body develops antibodies against its own DNA and other cellular material.  The name derives fro m the Latin for 'wolf,' because the skin lesions the disease sometimes causes were once thought to resemble wolf bites, some say." 

More information on treatments and drugs can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten aimed at male caregivers. My other books are MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of my newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that I co-authored with my then 8-year-old granddaughter. Check out my blog at https://woodyweingarten.com for even more info.