Humans of HOAF: Lung Cancer Survivor Stories
Humans of HOAF: Lung Cancer Survivor Stories
In honor of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Vaughn welcomes three HOAF lung cancer survivors, Jim Herrick, Jennifer Bartley, and Bradley James, to share their journey and experience. Listen now to go behind the diagnosis and hear the empowering stories recounting the importance of resilience, faith, and being proactive about your healthcare.
Dr. Vaughn:
Welcome listening audience. We are really excited about this upcoming podcast. Well, it is November and most of us are starting to lock into Thanksgiving prep, even remembrance of our veterans whom served or even getting a leg up on Black Friday. However, it is also a very important month in the arena of oncology because November marks Lung Cancer Awareness month. I would just like to highlight a few things before we begin. One is lung cancer is still the second most common cancer diagnosed in men and women, and unfortunately still is the number one cause of cancer mortality in both men and women. Although I do believe we are starting to make some significant strides, and the movement in novel therapeutics has been so apparent and, I believe, has impacted how I treat lung cancer probably more than any other cancer subtype. Lung cancer has, I believe, become the template on how we as medical oncologists target and individualize treatment for our patients.
The spectrum of treatment can be so different for each patient. We could recommend an oral medication that targets a specific weakness in a patient’s lung cancer, and in doing so sometimes can even remove chemotherapy altogether, or we can find ways to enhance our own immune system and using such drugs like KEYTRUDA and OPDIVO that bring our own lymphocytes to the site of cancer to destroy it. For instance, at Hope we just completed an enrollment of a clinical trial that showed the benefit of immunotherapy up front with chemotherapy before undergoing a definitive surgery. This has recently become FDA approved and now has become somewhat of a standard of care to undergo immunotherapy prior to surgery because of the beneficial outcomes that have been proven.
I would be also remiss though if I didn’t also discuss and take notice of our friends in both radiation oncology and thoracic surgery. They have also developed such novel techniques in radiation to deliver more precise treatments and limit side effects from radiation therapy. Our surgery colleagues have also demonstrated more less invasive surgeries removing less lung tissue and maybe it looks to be just as good as a large operation.
Also this benefits patients because they don’t have to stay as long in the hospital postoperatively.
