At 37 years old, Samantha Murrell was the living image of health. He hiked daily and enjoyed other outdoor activities such as rowing and mountain biking near his home in Montana.
Murrell was also proactive with her health and stayed on top of preventative screenings. She diligently looked for moles that could indicate the onset of skin cancer, self-examined her breasts due to a family history of breast cancer, and kept up with OB-GYN appointments to look for any early signs of reproductive cancer.
In early 2024, Murrell took a trip to India and battled a mild cough and chest tightness when he returned. Although he continued with his daily activities, the pressure in his chest became uncomfortable after two weeks and he went to an urgent care clinic for treatment.
An X-ray showed that his left lung had collapsed and was filled with fluid. They told him to go to the emergency room immediately. After draining and testing the fluid while she was hospitalized, the results came back as stage 4 lung cancer.
“I was very surprised when they told me I had lung cancer,” Murrell said. “It was the most confusing because I had never been taught that non-smokers could get lung cancer. If you had told me I had breast cancer, cervical cancer, or skin cancer, I probably would have accepted it right away and said, ‘Okay, let’s do this,’ but I thought this was the one cancer I just couldn’t get because I I had. “Don’t smoke.”
Read: Women who have never smoked can get lung cancer >>
What causes lung cancer in non-smokers?
While smoking remains the leading risk factor for lung cancer, diagnoses like Murrell’s are increasingly common among non-smokers. Up to 2 in 10 lung cancers (20,000-40,000 per year) are diagnosed in people who never smoked or smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their lives. Lung cancer is also more likely to occur in people over 65, with 70 being the average age of diagnosis, but younger women are now being diagnosed. diagnosed with lung cancer at higher rates than their male counterparts, especially among non-smokers.
Norman Edelman, MDprofessor of medicine at Stony Brook University who studies lung diseases, said the answers are not clear as to why lung cancer rates are increasing among non-smokers, but among those exposed to particle pollution face the greatest risk.
“Environmental pollutants increase the risk of lung cancer probably in the same way as cigarettes, because the oxidizing chemicals alter the DNA of cells,” Edelman said. “Although research is limited to the pollutants that are monitored, fine particles are the most studied and the most implicated.”
While secondhand smoke (exposure to other people’s tobacco) can be a factor in the development of lung cancer, environmental factors such as radonAir pollution, wildfire smoke and fine particles are increasingly linked to cases in non-smokers. The Environmental Protection Agency says that radon (radioactive gas that leaks into homes) is the Main cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.contributing to approximately 2,900 lung cancer deaths among non-smokers each year.
More research is also connecting genetic factors to the development of lung cancer, with studies showing how air pollution triggers Development of lung cancer in cells with certain genetic mutations.. While Murrell’s short trip to India probably didn’t cause her lung cancer, she believes the change in air quality and a weakened immune system from the trip triggered the symptoms that led to her diagnosis.
Continued research into genetic mutations could provide more information about the links between pollution and lung cancer in non-smokers. Murrell said he has the HER2 mutationwhich is more common in people with breast cancer, although up to 2% of lung cancer patients have the HER2 mutation. The most common cellular mutations in lung cancer patients are ALK or EGFR.
Read: Understanding the different types of lung cancer >>
When Murrell was in the hospital for his initial treatment, he attempted to discover the cause of his cancer. He remembers filling out a questionnaire asking if he had worked in a factory or lived in an area with high pollution or coal mining, neither of which applied. He lived in Iowa for seven years and read that Iowa had the Fastest growth rate of new cancers. in the U.S. Could you have been exposed to agricultural-related contaminants years ago?
“I don’t have an answer for my particular case,” Murrell said. “I was never around secondhand smoke. I wasn’t in a dangerous job. I don’t think I was exposed to radon since I moved around a lot and only lived in the same house for about two years in my entire life. “I just don’t know.”
Reduce your risk of lung cancer
While anyone can develop lung cancer, people of color, especially women, have worst results of the disease, often because they are less likely to receive early diagnosis or treatment, according to the American Lung Association. This is the case even when they experience common symptoms. lung cancer symptoms such as worsening cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing up blood, and fatigue.
Murrell encourages anyone experiencing those symptoms to see a health care provider immediately, although he is aware that several survivors spent years being misdiagnosed. When they received the diagnosis, they were in stage 4.
“If you have those symptoms and they don’t go away with just normal treatments, be very persistent and push for more investigations,” he said.
Read: Doctors ignored my cough because I wasn’t a smoker, but I had stage 4 lung cancer >>
Edelman also encourages eligible people to get screened for lung cancer. “The CT scan has been successful. “In recent decades, the five-year survival rate for lung cancer has increased,” he said.
To be eligible for annual screening under current U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines, you must be between 50 and 80 years old, currently smoke or have quit smoking within the last 15 years, and have a history of smoking 20 packs a year. (One pack a year is equivalent to smoking a pack [20 cigarettes] one day, every day for a year. A person might have a history of 20 pack-a-year smoking a pack-a-day for 20 years or smoking two pack-a-days for 10 years). These criteria, however, may leave out a large number of people without risk factors.
Murrell knows younger women with a family history who were denied testing and notes that she didn’t have any of the typical lung cancer symptoms that would have led a provider to suggest screening. The only early sign she recognizes now was a blood clot in 2023 that health professionals say could be related to birth control use or sitting for long periods of time on another plane trip. she believes now the clot was probably an early sign of lung cancer.
Today, Murrell and her husband live in Park City, Utah, where she can be closer to a NCI Designated Cancer Center for treatment. She considers her life “pretty normal” despite her diagnosis, and still walks four miles a day, lifts weights and works full time. She attributes her good health to her lifestyle before cancer treatment and is grateful to be able to continue doing the things she enjoys.
She has also become an advocate for Youth Lung Cancer Initiativewhich he found as a source of support during treatment. On his website and on social media, he read several stories of people who did well years after a stage 4 diagnosis.
“The Young Lung Cancer Initiative really caught my attention,” he said. “Initially, when I was diagnosed at the local hospital, I was given nine months to live, but seeing people’s messages gave me a lot of hope for this journey. “I am very lucky to have found the group so soon.”
This educational resource was created with the support of Daiichi Sankyo.
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