Paying Attention to Symptoms Makes All the Difference
- An active mother of two who runs for exercise started experiencing shoulder pain, tightening of the chest, and shortness of breath. Her doctor found a shadow on a CT scan, and further tests revealed stage 4 lung cancer.
- Lung cancer is commonly already in stage four when it is first diagnosed because its symptoms are hard to detect in the early stages of the disease. Treating lung cancer depends on the cancer’s location and how advanced it is.
- Treatment advancements for lung cancer include the drug Rybrevant, which is different from older cancer treatments because it is a targeted drug therapy. It doesn’t just attack all rapidly dividing cells like traditional chemotherapy. Instead, it goes after the cancer cells with the mutation it was designed to treat while avoiding the healthy surrounding cells.
- Lorlatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) for lung cancer. It targets ALK, a signaling protein found in some tumors of non-small cell lung cancer patients.
- The five-year progression-free survival (PFS), or the percentage of patients who lived five years without any evidence of cancer growth or death, was 60% among patients who received lorlatinib.
“When I first started feeling unwell, I heard so many different things from doctors and people around me,” Savage recalled in an Instagram post.
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She laments she was told, “It’s just stress,” “It must be your rotator cuff” or that “It’s probably nothing serious.”
However, the Michigan native’s curiosity for answers fueled her drive for answers.
“I was finally diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer,” Savage said.
Her diagnosis was delayed because she believed her odd symptoms stemmed from issues with her shoulder.
“It started out as shoulder pain, just felt like I had done something wrong, it was just this achy feeling, and then it started to spread towards my neck,” Savage explained.“It then moved to the center of my back and went all the way to the center of my chest,” she added.
The added pressure on her chest made breathing more difficult.
‘It felt like my body was gasping for air,” Savage added.
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When Savage went back to the doctor, she received a CT scan, which scanned her lungs and found a “shadow,” which led to her lung cancer diagnosis. Savage underwent treatment which involved chemotherapy. Fortunately, her treatments have been working because scans from late last year found her cancer to be “undetectable.”
After sharing her cancer journey on social media, her followers shared their connection with lung cancer.
“I’m sharing this not to scare you but to empower you to listen to your body. Early symptoms are sneaky. Silent. Easy to dismiss. But when caught early, they can save your life,” Savage added.
Helping Patients Understand Lung Cancer Risks
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- Lung Screening With Low-Dose CT Should Happen For All
- Combining Therapies What Does It Mean For Lung Cancer Patients?
- How To Deal With A New Metastatic Lung Cancer Diagnosis
- A New Development in the Fight Against Lung Cancer: Explaining the Liquid Biopsy
Understanding Lung Cancer and Why It’s Hard to Catch Early
Lung cancer forms when cancer cells develop in the tissues of the lung. It is the second most common form of cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and women in the U.S., SurvivorNet experts say. It’s “completely asymptomatic,” says thoracic surgeon-in-chief at Temple University Health System Dr. Joseph Friedberg.
“It causes no issues until it has spread somewhere. So, if it spreads to the bones, it may cause pain. If it spreads to the brain, it may cause something not subtle, like a seizure,” Dr. Friedberg adds.
WATCH: Detecting lung cancer in the absence of symptoms.
Scans such as X-rays can help doctors determine if a shadow appears, which can prompt further testing for lung cancer.
Lung cancer often doesn’t cause symptoms until it has already spread outside the lungs, according to SurvivorNet’s experts.
There are two main types of lung cancer, which doctors group together based on how they act and how they’re treated:
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type and makes up about 85% of cases.
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is less common, but it tends to grow faster than NSCLC and is treated very differently.
Some people with lung cancer may experience symptoms such as:
- A cough that doesn’t go away, that gets worse, or that brings up bloody phlegm
- Shortness of breath
- Fatigue
- Chest pain
- Hoarse voice
- Appetite loss
- Weight loss
If you are experiencing these kinds of symptoms consistently, contact your doctor for further tests.
Advancements In Lung Cancer Treatment
Lung cancer treatment is still evolving, offering the promise of hope for people living with this type of cancer. Research presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) showed that (generic name: durvalumab) (brand name: Imfinzi), a type of immunotherapy drug, could reduce the risk of death for patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) by 27-percent.
The study demonstrated that the use of Imfinzi improved overall survival and progression-free survival (the time a patient lives without their disease getting worse) in patients.
“SCLC is one of the most aggressive types of lung cancer. The ADRIATIC trial is a landmark study and provides a new standard of care with the addition of immunotherapy for patients with early-stage SCLC who are being treated with the goal of curing their cancer,” said Dr. Lauren Byers, thoracic section chief in the Department of Thoracic-Head & Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Dr. Byers pointed out that Imfinzi helped patients live for years compared to many other treatment approaches where the benefits were measured in months.
WATCH: Understanding Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer.
Another treatment option that has shown great promise is the drug Rybrevant, which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for non-small lung cancer (NSCLC) and has a specific genetic mutation your doctor can identify through testing.
“When a patient comes in, we immediately sequence the tumor. We are doing panels that might include three, four, or 500 genes, the ones that are most likely. Some sort of next-generation approach is the best standard of care these days – it has to be done,” Dr. Herbst explains.
The active ingredient in Rybrevant is amivantamab-vmjw. It belongs to a class of drugs known as biologics, which are made from living cells.
The drug works like a guided missile, finding and sticking to the bad cancer cells. It targets and attaches to two specific proteins in cancer cells, disrupting their growth signals and activating the immune system to fight the cancer.
Once it finds its target, it blocks signals the cells need to grow and spread. This stops the cancer from worsening and helps patients feel better for longer.
Rybrevant is different from older cancer treatments because it is a targeted drug therapy. It doesn’t just attack all rapidly dividing cells like traditional chemotherapy does. Instead, it goes after the cancer cells with the mutation it was designed to treat while avoiding the healthy surrounding cells. This means it can be more effective and might have fewer side effects than other treatments.
WATCH: Imfinzi offering hope to patients.
Lorlatinib and crizotinib are other lung cancer treatments known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors. These drugs target ALK, a signaling protein inappropriately present in the tumors of about five percent of patients with NCSLC.
“It is encouraging that the upfront benefits of lorlatinib over crizotinib continue for several years in more than half the patients. It also is encouraging that patients receiving lorlatinib had much fewer incidences of brain metastasis, which can be devastating,” Dr. Leslie Busby, an oncologist at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, told SurvivorNet.
Five-year PFS, or the percentage of patients who lived five years without any evidence of cancer growth or death, was 60% among patients who received lorlatinib compared to only 8% among patients who received crizotinib—an absolute difference greater than 50%.
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