Only about 15 percent of lung cancer patients diagnosed in the U.S. are individuals who have never smoked—known to cancer researchers as “never smokers.” Yet, says Charles Rudin, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, lung cancer in never smokers is the sixth-leading cause of cancer mortality, with about 15,000 deaths each year.

Recent studies suggest that never smokers often get a different type of lung cancer than smokers. The EGFR genetic mutation, present in only 10 to 15 percent of all lung tumors, occurs in a considerable 25 to 30 percent of never smokers’ lung tumors. Likewise, genetic aberrations affecting an enzyme called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), seen in just 4 percent of all lung tumors, occur in 10 to 15 percent of tumors in never smokers. This means that never smokers are more likely to be candidates for the newer targeted therapies used to treat non–small cell lung cancer.

Kim Norris, the president of the Lung Cancer Foundation of America, says never smokers should be aware of the disease’s symptoms: a nagging cough, hoarseness, and pain in the chest, back, shoulder or ribs.

Just as important, doctors need to have lung cancer on their radars when they see these symptoms in never smokers. “We need to help physicians understand,” says Regina Vidaver, the executive director of the National Lung Cancer Partnership, “that the typical [patient] profile is not the whole story.” 
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12/05/2011