#LCSM Chat Preview March 13 – Stress, Anxiety and Lung Cancer: How Do You Cope?

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The post below is reblogged with permission from the LCSM website.

Patients and caregivers experience considerable stress and anxiety as a result of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. How do you handle stress? Is it possible to prevent stress or is it ‘just a part of life’?  Some individuals handle stress and anxiety better than others. We want to explore this topic in more detail during this week’s #LCSM chat.

T1: What kinds of stress do lung cancer patients experience due to their cancer diagnosis or treatment?

 T2: What can healthcare providers do to help reduce stress for a lung cancer patient or caregiver?

 T3: What can patients and caregivers do to help reduce stress for themselves and each other?

Our guest for this chat will be Dr. Niki Barr, (@nikibarrphd), a Dallas, Texas, based psychotherapist who specializes in working with cancer patients and their families and teaches them how to “move through the continual challenges of cancer with emotional wellbeing”.

We know this is a very sensitive subject and we don’t expect anyone to share his or her most personal stories in such an open forum.  So we are offering an opportunity for you to submit questions to Dr. Barr in a confidential setting.  If you have a question you’d like answered or addressed during the chat, please email us at lcsmchat@gmail.com.  Only those of us associated with #LCSM Chat will be privy to the contents of the email. We will then forward the questions to Dr. Barr for possible use during the chat. Please note that if we use your question, we won’t use your name. 

 Please join us Thursday, March 13, 7 CT/8 ET, for an in-depth conversation about stress and anxiety associated with a lung cancer diagnosis. 

Thoughts or questions? Email us directly at lcsmchat@gmail.com, leave a note on our blog or send us a direct message on Twitter, @lcsmchat.

Guest Post: Does Cancer Screening Cause “Overdiagnosis”?

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The guest post below is written in response to Dr. Scot Aberegg’s blog post.  His and other recent blog posts and articles have claimed “overdiagnosis” of breast cancer and lung cancer due to screening.  Andrea Borondy Kitts, a former engineer and fellow Lung Cancer Social Media tweeter whose husband died of lung cancer last year, addresses Dr. Aberegg’s claims in her letter.

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Dr. Aberegg, thank you for your interesting post on overdiagnosis problems with breast and lung cancer screening. I would like to comment on many of your points.

Background:

I am a mechanical engineer.  I have a Master’s degree in Management and retired after a 32 year career in aerospace, 10 years as an executive. I am back in school getting a 2nd Masters degree, this time in Public Health. I advocate for lung cancer as a volunteer for the American Lung Association, for the National Lung Cancer Partnership, on twitter as @findlungcancer, and for several Hartford CT area hospitals with their lung cancer screening programs. I lost my husband, Dan, to lung cancer on April 12th, 2013 after an 18 month hard fought battle. Dan had all the risk factors for lung cancer. He was 69 years old at the time of his diagnosis, he had quit smoking 11 years prior to his diagnosis, he had an 80 pack year smoking history, his sister had died of lung cancer at age 62 and Dan had COPD. Unfortunately, at the time of his diagnosis, lung cancer screening was not recommended.

Comments on the BMJ paper about the Canadian National Breast Screening Trial:

We had a 3 hour discussion in my UConn Chronic Disease Control class last week about the recent British Medical Journal (BMJ) paper on the 25 year follow up to the Canadian National Breast Screening Study. In attendance were 2 cancer epidemiologists, one a breast cancer expert, and an oncologist with breast cancer expertise.  In conclusion, the consensus among the experts was the study did not provide enough credible evidence to change the recommendation for breast cancer screening in the US.

Key concerns raised with this study:

  • In the mammography group 2/3 of the breast cancers found were palpable. This is not consistent with clinical breast screening experience where most breast cancers found with mammography are too small to feel.
  • Screening was only for 5 years. Most breast cancers are slow growing so may not have screened long enough to capture the difference in mortality. The risk for breast cancer increases with age, so each passing year after the screening stopped the women had a higher risk of getting breast cancer. The number of breast cancers found in the mammography and non mammography arms were the same after the 5 year screening period was stopped.
  • Although mortality did not differ between the 2 groups, the cancers found in the mammography group were smaller and less were lymph node positive.
  • The study is predicated on universal access to adjuvant therapy. Canada has a National Health System so all women have access to care. This is not the case in the US.

Other discussion points:

  • There are 22 million women in the US between the ages of 40 – 49. Not screening this population would save a lot of money.
  • Need to have better genetic markers for who will develop breast cancer to risk stratify the population to screen

My “take-aways” from the discussion

  • Large screening clinical trials/studies are hard to do right especially with decades of follow-up; often new technology and new treatments can overtake results
  • Policy can be influenced by strong advocacy sometimes resulting in non-evidence based recommendations
  • Even the experts don’t fully understand the results and don’t know how to apply to population recommendations

Comments on lung cancer screening:

The most important point to consider when comparing lung cancer screening to Mammography or PSA screening is that lung cancer screening is different.  Screening is limited to the high risk population and the gold standard randomized trial, the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), showed a 20% mortality reduction with LDCT screening versus chest x-ray.

I don’t understand the derivation of your NNS of 950. The original paper published in the NEJM calculates the NNS as 320 for the NLST study population.

One of your discussion points focused on all-cause mortality being biased lower in the LDCT group, not because of incidental findings, but because of changed behavior in the LDCT group with false positives; for example smoking cessation. I do not think this biases the results. The results are a real, albeit, an unintended benefit for LDCT screening. The public health and medical communities have been continuously searching for ways to influence people to adopt healthy behaviors.  It’s wonderful, if in fact, LDCT screening provides a “teachable moment” resulting in healthier behaviors and improved outcomes.

Your discussion about telling folks to quit smoking as a better alternative to lung cancer screening is flawed in that, more than 50% of lung cancer diagnoses are in former smokers. These are people who have already quit smoking. Their only hope for improved survival is for secondary prevention in the form of early diagnosis with LDCT screening.

Your discussion about older people not being screened due to overdiagnosis because of mortality due to other causes is disturbing. You seem to be advocating that when people reach a certain age, we should give up on any type of screening because they will probably die soon anyway. I was particularly shocked with your statement “What if, in essence, we save a lot of people from lung cancer who then die from a heart attack 6 months later?” This would imply we should not treat any disease with a 6 month or less prognosis; let’s just save the money, 6 months is not worth the expense to society. WOW. You criticize the USPSTF final recommendation to screen to age 80 as too old. However, you neglect to mention the USPSTF modifier that “screening should be discontinued once a person has not smoked for 15 years or develops a health problem that substantially limits life expectancy or the ability or willingness to have curative lung surgery”.

And finally you discuss how a physician patient discussion on lung cancer screening might go. I would like to add a few more scenarios to your hypothetical discussion.

  • There is now a recommended screening test for lung cancer for a high risk population. I think you might be in the recommended to screen group. I wanted to review your risk factors with you and discuss if screening might be right for you.
  • It’s great that you stopped smoking 11 years ago. However, your risk level is still elevated. Your heavy 80 pack year smoking history puts you at increased risk. We know there is a strong dose response relationship with smoking and lung cancer. In addition, knowing that your sister died at age 62 from lung cancer, puts you at increased risk as well. You also have COPD another known risk factor.  I have a risk calculator I use to help me stratify risk for my patients. http://www.brocku.ca/lung-cancer-risk-calculator
  •  There is a 25% chance you will have a finding from your screening. 95% of the time it will not be lung cancer. Most of the time, the follow up to the finding is another LDCT. There is a small possibility you would have a more invasive procedure. However, the benefit of finding lung cancer at an early stage is improved survival. At stage 1a there is an 85% chance you will be alive after 5 years. At stage 4 that is less than 10%.
  • Based on your risk profile, I think you should consider LDCT lung cancer screening.

The point is that each patient is unique and the discussion with the patient should be tailored to the risk profile for the patient. The discussion you portray would not be appropriate for my hypothetical patient, who yes, happens to fit the profile of my husband who died in April 2013 from lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in the US and worldwide. It is the second leading cause of all deaths in the US after cardiovascular disease. More people die of lung cancer than breast, colon, and prostate cancer combined. Five year survival at 16% is essentially unchanged since 1975. We finally have a screening test for lung cancer and if everybody would stop trying to discredit the test and just get out of the way we will save lives!

#LCSM Chat 27-Feb-14: What do cancer patients want from their doctors and online support groups?

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[This is a reblog of a post on the #LCSM blog.  Reposted with permission]

 

The focus for the next #LCSM Chat at 8 PM Eastern (5 PM Pacific) on Thursday, February 27, 2014 will be “What do cancer patients want from their doctors and online support groups?” The moderator will be Dr. Jack West.

Online cancer support groups can provide a wealth of information and understanding for cancer patients, caregivers, and family members. Many in online forums find expertise and credibility among others who have traveled down the same road. “Expert patients” in these forums can provide an understanding and hope that even the best doctor can’t offer, because they’re living proof you can understand your treatment options, and your treatment can work. And online groups are available 24/7, for free.

However, different patients seek out different levels of information, both in these forums and with their doctors. Some want to know all the available facts, including survival data in the tables and figures shared among oncologists. Others prefer to trust their doctors and hope for good results. This leaves doctors wondering if providing a frank discussion of statistics (which might not be encouraging) would inform, confuse, or scare patients.

Also, different patients are comfortable with different levels of self-advocacy. Some express a strong desire for self-determination of their treatments, while others want a clear recommendation from a trusted oncologist about the a best way to proceed.

Given the diversity in cancer patient needs and wants, our upcoming #LCSM tweetchat on will focus on the following questions:

1) Do the shared experiences of patients provide value and credibility that can’t come from medical professionals?

2) Given the growing movement to give patients their data, should doctors share stats like survival numbers with the patients? If so, when?

3) Do engaged, empowered patients want a clear recommendation from their doctor, or a presentation of pros and cons so they can choose among the options?

We hope that those of you who use Twitter as a communication tool will join us by following the hashtag #LCSM on Thursday. Feel free to also comment here, before or after the tweet chat.

Background

Upcoming #LCSM chat: What do patients want and need from online networks and their doctors?
by Dr. Jack West on cancergrace.org

ePatients: Engaging Patients in Their Own Care by Medscape

Society for Participatory Medicine

Are physicians ready for the e-patient movement? on KevinMD.com

What Is an “Off Label” Cancer Drug?

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Sometimes the term “off label” comes up in discussions of cancer drugs.  What does “off label” mean?

All prescription drugs sold in the USA have been approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  After a drug is approved by the FDA, it sometimes is used for different purposes or in different populations.  That is “off label” use of a drug.  As WebMD explains, it’s perfectly legal. Per the National Cancer Institute’s definition, off label is “the legal use of a prescription drug to treat a disease or condition for which the drug has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Consumer Reports states off label drug prescription is actually very common.  More than one in five outpatient prescriptions today are written off label.  For instance, Neurontin (also known as gabapentin) was originally approved to treat seizures.  It is now also used to treat nerve pain and neuropathy – an off label use.  However, one trusts that one’s doctor will only prescribe a drug with good evidence that drug is useful for the patient’s disease or condition.

Two types of off label use occur. The first type is when a drug is used to treat the approved disease, but used in a manner different than stated in the FDA approval.  For instance, use of the antidepressant Zoloft is off label in children (Zoloft is FDA approved for adults only); taking a drug in a larger dose or on a different schedule than that approved by the FDA is also off label. The second type of off label use is when a drug is used to treat a condition or disease different than that for which the drug was originally approved.

Cancer drugs are sometimes used off label to treat metastatic patients who have exhausted traditional treatment options, but only if evidence indicates the drug might be effective against the patient’s particular cancer situation.  For example, crizotinib (Xalkori) was approved by the FDA only for non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients whose tumors tested positive for the ALK translocation (a type of mutation in a specific gene called ALK).  In addition, the approval stated the patient’s ALK-positive (ALK+) status had to be determined by a specific molecular test.  Prescribing Xalkori for patients who test ALK+ using a different type of test (genomic profiling) is an off label use, because the patients weren’t tested with the specific test named in the FDA approval.  This is not a big deal, because research indicates both tests identify ALK+ tissue with high accuracy.

Xalkori is also legally prescribed for a different disease: ROS1+ lung cancer in patients (like me). ROS1 is a different tumor mutation than ALK, but has a similar structure–technically, ROS1+ NSCLC is a different disease than ALK+ NSCLC. This is an off-label use, because Xalkori has not been approved for treating ROS1+ lung cancer.  Xalkori for ROS1+ lung cancer has been in clinical trials for over two years, with a goal of someday obtaining FDA approval (this is the clinical trial in which I am enrolled). Strong evidence from this clinical trial indicates Xalkori has a high response rate in ROS1+ lung cancer patients, so oncologists are now prescribing Xalkori for this use even though it’s not approved by the FDA for that purpose.

Even a drug that’s approved to treat a particular cancer can be used to treat that cancer in off-label ways. Examples are when a drug normally approved for first line treatment is used for maintenance, or when the dosing interval differs from the schedule called out in the FDA approval.  A friend who has metastatic lung cancer could not tolerate the standard combination chemotherapy for lung cancer because he couldn’t have a platinum drug.  He wanted to have Gemzar, a relatively well-tolerated chemo, off label as a single agent (Gemzar’s FDA approval says it must be used with a platinum drug). After consulting several different oncologists, all of whom wanted to put him on hospice, he found an oncologist willing to give him Gemzar off label as a single agent.  My friend was stable on Gemzar for over two years.

As genomic testing identifies more mutations in different types of cancer tumors, drugs that are FDA approved for one type of cancer – say, a BRAF inhibitor for melanoma– might be tried in a BRAF+ lung cancer patient.  Or, an oncologist might prescribe a cancer drug off label after a functional profiling assay indicates a drug approved for a different cancer is effective against a patient’s tumor tissue. Until FDA approval is given for the drug to be used in a different cancer, this is considered an off label use. However, it could also be a life-saving use for the patient.

“As a cancer patient, it’s always a good idea to ask your oncologist what evidence he has for using a drug off label to treat your cancer. Most oncologists will cite results from early research or a clinical trial. If they don’t have such evidence, ask LOTS of questions. You as the patient are ultimately the one assuming the risk of an off label drug.”

Assuming one has an up-to-date and responsible oncologist, a cancer patient’s primary concerns regarding an off label cancer drug are usually side effects, and whether their insurance will cover a non-approved use of that drug. Sometimes insurance companies will not cover a pricey drug used off label.  When oncologists started prescribing Xalkori for ROS1+ lung cancer outside of clinical trials, some insurance companies refused to cover the expensive drug (around US $10,000 per month) because it was not FDA approved for that type of cancer.  However, I’m hearing more ROS1+ LC patients say their insurance is covering Xalkori even without FDA approval. Insurance companies are learning to adapt to the changing molecular landscape of cancer, just as researchers, oncologists, regulators and professional organizations are.

The times they are a changin’.  Off label cancer drugs may be the new black.

Call to Action: Tell Medicare and Medicaid to Cover Lung Cancer Screening

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This is a reblog of a post I wrote for the #LCSM website. Reposted with permission.

Anyone can get lung cancer. Screening for lung cancer with low dose CT scans (LDCT) can save thousands of lives every year. Many private health insurers already provide coverage for this screening.

Tell the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) you want them to provide coverage too. On February 10, CMS opened a 30-day comment period to support their national coverage analysis on Lung Cancer Screening with LDCT. This comment period closes on March 12, 2014.

Please sign this petition to tell CMS to provide coverage for LDCT, and ask everyone you know to sign it too. The results of this petition will be submitted to CMS as a comment on March 11, 2014. You can help save thousands of lives!
Petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/centers-for-medicare-medicaid-services-cms-provide-coverage-for-lung-cancer-screening-with-ldct .

People might also want to provide a comment directly to CMS — especially those who are Medicare or Medicaid-eligible and who were either diagnosed with advanced lung cancer or are at high risk for lung cancer.
Comment directly to CMS here:
http://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/details/submit-public-comment.aspx?DocID=274&DocType=nca&DocName=Lung+Cancer+Screening+with+Low+Dose+Computed+Tomography&NCAId=274&bc=AAAAAAAAAAQAAA%3D%3D&

If you are a health care professional who deals with lung cancer or a medical center offering LDCT, please go to this link to read more about the type of information that would be most helpful to CMS, then provide a comment directly to CMS
http://cancergeek.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/call-to-action-performing-low-dose-ct-lung-cancer-screening-please-comment-to-cms/
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For more information about why lung cancer screening with LDCT is important, read on:

Lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer in the world, and the #2 killer of all types in the United States (per the CDC). In 2012 more than 226,000 people received a new lung cancer diagnosis, and almost 160,000 died of the disease – that’s like a jumbo jet full of passengers dying every single day of the year.

Lung cancer kills so many in part because the majority of patients are not diagnosed until the cancer has already spread outside of the lung. Patients in the early stage of the disease rarely display symptoms.

Lung cancer screening with LDCT can decrease the high mortality rate of lung cancer by detecting the disease before symptoms appear and enabling patients to pursue a cure with surgery. An article in medical journal The Oncologist states “… a national LDCT screening program would save more than 18,000 lives annually.”

At this point, the guidelines recommend LDCT only for older people with high risk factors for lung cancer. Tobacco smoking is the greatest—but not the only—risk factor for lung cancer. An NIH-funded study of 53,454 current and former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 showed screening for lung cancer using LDCT could reduce lung cancer deaths in that group by 20%.

LDCT is covered by some private health insurance policies, but it is not currently covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Anyone at any age can get lung cancer, but the risk of getting lung cancer increases with age. Older people (who are at higher risk for lung cancer) may not be able to pay for screening if it is not covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Lung cancer screening with LDCT is now available in a growing number of medical centers. It is included in National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines and recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, American College of Chest Physicians, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Lung Cancer Alliance, and other organizations focused on lung cancer.

It’s time early detection for lung cancer gets the same attention as other top cancers. Screening for breast and colon cancers increased both awareness and survival for these diseases.

Thank you for supporting the fight against lung cancer!

Can we erase lung cancer stigma without mentioning “smoking”?

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Some people have indicated my previous post (Dear lung cancer patient who smoked) reinforces a division within the lung cancer community (those who smoked versus those who didn’t).  That wasn’t my intention.  In fact, it was a division I was trying to heal. If I offended anyone, I apologize.

Like any group of people, those of us in the lung cancer community are individuals.  We differ in many ways:  age, physical fitness, financial status, geographic location, family relationships, gender, sexual orientation, smoking history, nutritional choices, weight, desire for privacy.  Our close personal experience with lung cancer is the only thing we all have in common.

Lung cancer patients and advocates talk about the stigma of lung cancer (which is largely associated with smoking) because we and others we know have experienced it. It is real. If we don’t talk about the stigma, who else will?

One approach to erasing the stigma is to show the world the diversity among lung cancer patients. Somehow we need to show the public that lung cancer patients don’t fit one mold.  To do this, we have to reveal our differences. The perception of HIV patients changed in part because patients with different personal characteristics spoke out and showed the world the diversity among HIV patients.

The fact that we talk about our differences doesn’t imply any judgment or preferred categories among us, although some people will always attempt to pigeonhole people in that manner.  We can acknowledge our differences and still accept each other.  Attempting to show the diversity within the lung cancer community in no way implies any judgment that some personal characteristics or habits are “better” than others. But somehow, no matter how carefully phrased, discussions about stigma that involve the word “smoking” seem to make some people feel even more stigmatized.

If you have ideas how we can demonstrate the diversity within the lung cancer community without mentioning the word “smoking,” I’d love to hear them.  Please share them in the comments section here, in our upcoming February 13 #LCSM tweetchat, or in an email to me at jfreeman.wa at gmail.com.

Dear lung cancer patient who smoked

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Dear lung cancer patient who smoked:

Please forgive yourself.  No one deserves to die from lung cancer. No one.

We have all done things that could impact our health. Do heart patients deserve to die because one of their habits might have contributed to a heart attack? Do I deserve to die because I used high doses of sugar and caffeine (M&Ms and regular Coca-Cola) to get through late night study sessions in college?

Most people who took up smoking did so when they were teenagers. It looked cool. It looked grown up. Others of us made different not-so-healthy choices at that age. Yes, it’s healthier not to smoke. But it’s not a sin that warrants the death penalty.

You had some help forming your smoking habit. The tobacco and entertainment industries made smoking look “cool” and “mature” through TV, advertising, billboards and movies, especially during the 50s and 60s. Tobacco companies upped the ante over the years by adding nicotine and other chemicals to their products that ensured their customer base got addicted quickly and stayed addicted.

Rather than asking whether you deserve to die, perhaps you should try asking who or what you have to live for.

Love,

A lung cancer patient who never smoked

#LCSM Chat 13-Feb-2014: “Brainstorming: How Do We Erase the Stigma of Lung Cancer?”

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[This is a reblog of a post on the #LCSM blog.  Reposted with permission]

Erasing the stigma of lung cancer is one of the goals of all advocates who fight for more lung cancer awareness and funding.  But sometimes it’s hard to know how to go about it.

The focus of the #LCSM Chat on February 13 will be “Brainstorming: How Do We Erase the Stigma of Lung Cancer?”  Imagine we have unlimited funds, political influence in all the right places, ready access to every medical professional, and all the trained, eloquent workers we need.  What actions would erase the stigma of lung cancer?

Our moderator for this chat, Laronic Conway, will use these topics to get the discussion going:

  • T1: How would you erase lung cancer stigma among individuals? Billboards? Front-page articles? Doorbelling? Be specific.
  • T2: How would you erase lung cancer stigma among healthcare professionals? What would you need to do this?
  • T3: How would you erase lung cancer stigma among government officials and lawmakers? What would you need to do this?
  • T4: How would you erase lung cancer stigma among lung cancer patients and their families?

To prepare for this chat, you might wish to read some of the articles about lung cancer stigma on our new “Lung Cancer in the Media” page.

Guidelines on how to participate in an #LCSM Chat can be found on the “#LCSM Chat” page of the #LCSM website. Hope to see you on Twitter!

American Lung Association Unveils LUNG FORCE Initiative

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On January 29, the launch event for the American Lung Association’s new national LUNG FORCE initiative occurred in Seattle.  As stated on the LUNG FORCE website, “LUNG FORCE is a new national movement led by the American Lung Association with a singular mission: to unite women to stand together against lung cancer and for lung health.” ALA chose to focus on women because market research indicated that was the best way to break the stigma of lung cancer and bring it into public awareness. ALA’s aim for LUNG FORCE is to raise money for lung cancer research, education and advocacy. They are extremely responsive to the patients’ voice and are genuinely interested in promoting the concept that ANYONE who has lungs can get lung cancer, and NO ONE deserves to die from it.

Seattle is the launch city for the first LUNG FORCE Walk. I’m on the Patient-Survivor-Family Cabinet of the ALA’s Mountain Pacific chapter in Seattle. This chapter also has a Medical Professionals Cabinet, among them oncologist Dr. Howard (Jack) West, Medical Director of Thoracic Oncology at Swedish Medical Center and Founder of cancerGRACE.org (who was unable to attend the kickoff due to horrendous traffic); Dr. David K. Madtes. Director of the Lung Cancer Early Detection & Prevention Clinic at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (an NCCN facility); and Dr. Steven Kirtland, Medical Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program at Virginia Mason Medical Center (and, coincidentally, my pulmonologist). We also have a cabinet of women business leaders.

I’m thrilled that an established, large national public health organization has chosen to join the effort to eliminate the stigma of lung cancer, educate people about symptoms, champion early detection, and promote research funding. Although ALA has long had a strong anti-smoking program, they are acutely aware of the need to keep it separate from LUNG FORCE to avoid promoting further stigma. I’m hopeful ALA is the Big Dog that will tip the scales and finally bring lung cancer into the public’s awareness.

And yes, the munchies were yummy!

Thanks to Hello Robin, Cupcake Royale, Trader Joes, and st. clouds restaurant for donating refreshments, and glassbaby for donating the meeting space.


Patients and Doctors Who Spoke at Seattle LUNG FORCE Kickoff 29-Jan-2014. I’m second from the left; my pulmonologist Dr. Steven Kirtland is third from right.

This 17-minute video captures the presentations at the kickoff event. I was the last of three patients who spoke at the event.

#LCSM Salutes World Cancer Day

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[This is a reblog of a post on the #LCSM blog.  Reposted with permission]

Tomorrow, February 4th, is World Cancer Day. The focus this year is Target 5 of the World Cancer Declaration:  reduce stigma and dispel myths about cancer. The World Cancer Day campaign seeks to “Debunk the myths” of cancer:

  • We don’t need to talk about cancer
  • There are no signs or symptoms of cancer
  • There’s nothing I can do about cancer
  • I don’t have the right to cancer care

This focus parallels the goal of #LCSM “to educate, develop public support, end the stigma, and facilitate successful treatments for the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.”

On World Cancer Day, we hope the #LCSM community will take the opportunity to tweet about lung cancer as well as cancer in general.  Be sure to use “#LCSM” as well as “#WorldCancerDay” in your tweets so followers of both communities can see them. You can find a list of tweet-sized facts and the supporting documents on our Lung Cancer Facts page.  Or, if you prefer, just retweet #LCSM tweets that appear during the day.

Happy tweeting!