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.

Camera examination of ancient skull shows that Egyptians tried to remove cancer 4,500 years ago

By examining an Egyptian skull from 4,500 years ago, an archeologist and his team apparently have "changed the previously understood timeline of when humans may have tried to treat cancer." 

A story by Ben Brasch in editions of The Washington Post a while back quotes archeologist Edgard Camarós, PhD professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, as saying "it was clear that we were looking at a milestone in the history of medicine. That was one of those eureka moments." 

Camarós and his team maintain that they've "found proof that moves forward our under landing of when humans treat to treat cancer by 1,000 years."

Edgard Camarós

The team recently published a report in the Frontiers in Medicine journal explaining how they used new camera-and-screen technology and how the markings they found indicate that ancient scientists were trying to remove cancer from a skull.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer was the second-leading cause of death in the United States in 2022.

More information linking research and diseases 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.

Immunotherapy in clinical trial takes one-third of patients from hopelessness to a potential cure

Despite multiple myeloma having been considered incurable, a third of patients in a clinical trial have lived without detectable cancer for five years.

Patients in the trial conducted by Johnson & Johnson researchers had been facing "certain, and extremely painful, death within a year," according to a story by Gina Kolata in yesterday's editions of The New York Times.

But after five years, the immunotherapy developed by Legend Biotech, a company founded in China, seems to have made the cancer disappear in a third of the patients — "a result never before seen in this disease."

Dr. Norman Sharpless

"In my 30 years in oncology, we haven't talked about curing myeloma," the Times quoted Dr. Norman Sharpless," professor of cancer policy and innovation at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and a former director of the National Cancer Institute. "This is the first time we are really talking seriously about cure in one of the worst malignancies imaginable."

The study by Johnson & Johnson, which has an exclusive licensing agreement with Legend Biotech, was published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology and reported yesterday at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"The Legend immunotherapy is a type known as CAR-T," Kolata's article explains. "It is delivered as an infusion of the patient’s own white blood cells that have been removed and engineered to attack the cancer. The treatment has revolutionized prospects for patients with other types of blood cancer, like leukemia."

Treatments for multiple myeloma are extremely costly. They can run more than $100,000 —  "hideously expensive," according to Dr. Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania. Total cost over the years can be millions of dollars, usually paid by insurers, "and it doesn't even cure you," he told the Times.

Thirty-six thousand Americans each year develop the deadly blood disease, which eats away at bones so it looks as though holes have been punched out in them, elaborates June. Bones can collapse. 

"It's a horrible, horrible death," says June.

More information on clinical trials 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. Find out more on my blog, https://woodyweingarten.com.

Biden and his allies are 'very optimistic' about his ability to beat metastasized prostate cancer

Former President Joe Biden

Former President Joe Biden and those around him appear to be sanguine about his being able to whip his metastasized prostate cancer — even though there is no cure.

Looking forward to his recovery, he specifically told reporters last week that "we're going to be able to beat this."

According to an online story by Sebastian Murdock in the HuffPost, he also said, "The prognosis is good. We're working on everything. It's moving along, and I feel good. All the folks are very optimistic."

Earlier last month the 82-year-old was diagnosed with the Stage 4 cancer that had metastasized to the bone. Biden's office admitted it was "a more aggressive form of the disease."

In a chat with reporters at his home, Biden said, "The expectation is we're going to be able to beat this...It's not in any organ, my bones are strong."

The New York Times earlier had quoted Dr. Judd Moul, a prostate cancer expect at Duke University, as saying that men whose prostate cancer had metastasized "can live five, seven, 10 more years." 

He noted that "survival rates have almost tripled in the last decade."

More information on metastasis 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 website, https://woodyweingarten.com/.

Mammogram that proves better for women with dense breasts barely used in the United States

A large study shows that one particular mammogram can find more cancers for women with dense breast tissue.

According to a recent story by Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times, the study, which compared various types of scans, "has found that mammography enhanced with iodine-based dye can detect three times as many invasive cancers in dense breast tissue as ultrasound."

Women with dense breast tissue are at an elevated risk for breast cancer. Because insurers often decline to pay for scans such as the contrast-enhanced mammograms, many women stick with basic mammograms that often miss tumors buried in dense breasts.

Dr. Fiona J. Gilbert

Rabin quotes Dr. Fiona J. Gilbert, lead author of the study that was published in The Lancet and a professor of radiology at the University of Cambridge's  School of Clinical Medicine, as saying that "contrast-enhanced mammography needs to become standard of care for women with dense breasts" — if they're at high risk of developing breast cancer.

She explained that "when you have lots of white normal breast tissue, it's hard to see the white cancers, but when you do the contrast, the cancers take up the iodine, and all you're seeing is this cancer lighting up."

The Times piece also quotes JoAnn Pushkin, executive director of the educational group DenseBreast-info, to the effect that the study showed contrast-enhanced mammograms could save lives. She said that researchers not only found more tumors but detected them when they were small and had not yet spread to the lymph nodes.

"These," she said, "were tragedies averted. If they had not been found, they would have grown undetected until they were horror stories."

Contrast-enhanced mammography has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for breast cancer screening, so it is barely used in the United States. It is, however, utilized in limited cases as a diagnostic tool after suspicious findings appear on a regular mammogram.

More information about screenings 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.

Younger adults are missing early warning signs of colon cancer, writer reports in The N.Y. Times

Many adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are missing the red flags for colon cancer, a problem that's partially responsible for colorectal cancer rates rapidly rising in that age bracket.

A story by Roni Caryn Rabin in editions of The New York Times a while ago notes that the most common warning sign for the disease is passing blood in the stool.

Rabin's article explains, too, that "rectal bleeding is associated with a fivefold increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to the new analysis, which looked at 81 studies that included nearly 25 million adults under 50 from around the world."

Other common warning signs are abdominal pain, change in bowel habits, and anemia.

At the same time, the story says, rates have declined among older people, "who are far more likely to get colonoscopies that can catch cancers and precancerous lesions called polyps."

Despite the fact that "millennials born around 1990 are at almost twice the risk of colon cancer compared with people born in the 1950s, and have a risk of rectal cancer that is four times as high, young people without a strong family history of colon cancer aren't eligible for colonoscopies until the age of 45," the Times piece adds. 

Dr. Joshua Demb

According to Dr. Joshua Demb, cancer epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the lead authors of the paper that was published in the journal JAMA Network Open, because physicians are less likely to suspect malignancies in younger people, they may attribute a symptom like rectal bleeding to a benign condition like hemorrhoids, rather than cancer.

"We need to facilitate early detection," he was quoted as saying, "and one way is identifying these red flags."

According to Rabin, "from the time younger adults first go to a caregiver with a complaint about a symptom until thy receive a diagnosis can take four to six months on average [and] because the diagnosis is often delayed, younger adults tend to have more advanced disease that s harder to treat."

Colorectal cancer, the story also says, "has long been associated with obesity, smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, high alcohol intake, and diets that are rich in red meat, processed food, and sugary drinks."

More information about red flags 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.

Study at UC San Francisco finds 'alarming' hike in advanced prostate cancer across California

An "alarming" surge in advanced prostate cancer across California in the past decade may be linked to changes in guidelines that have reduced routine screenings for the disease.

At least  that's the conjecture in a story by Aidin Vaziri in recent e-editions of the San Francisco Chronicle about a new study at UCSF published in JAMA Network Open.

The study, which according to Vaziri analyzed nearly 388,000 prostate cancer cases between 2004 and 2021, "found that the number of advanced prostate cancer diagnoses statewide increased by 6.7% annually from 2011 to 2021."

Erin Van Blarigan

The Chronicle piece quotes Erin Van Blarigan, ScD, the study's led author and an associate professor professor at  the University of California, San Francisco, as believing "this overall rising trend is alarming and has occurred across age groups, regions of California, races, and ethnicities."

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States.

Although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2012 stopped recommending routine PSA testing for all men, citing concerns over  unnecessary treatments, "UCSF researchers suggest that the shift may have missed opportunities to catch aggressive cancers early, when treatments are more effective," the story indicates. 

California does not stand alone. Nationally, advanced cases of the disease have also risen since the screening guidelines changed. But the Golden State's annual climb is 6.7% as opposed to the countrywide percentage of 4.5. 

More information about screening guidelines can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, its author, aimed at male caregivers.