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After lung cancer treatment ends, you will face a whole new world. Whether you are creating a survivorship plan or an end-of-life plan, nothing will be as it was before diagnosis. You will confront new fears, new opportunities to help others, and new social and physical situations.

Let us help you refocus your hope on where you are today and boldly face this new phase.

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Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions: What’s Right for You?

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Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions: What’s Right for You? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

When choosing an lung cancer treatment, what should be considered? Dr. Jessica Bauman, a lung cancer specialist, reviews treatment types and key decision-making factors, including how test results influence options and provides advice to help you advocate for better care.

Dr. Jessica Bauman is assistant professor in the department of hematology/oncology and as associate program director of the hematology/oncology fellowship training program at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Learn more about Dr. Bauman here.

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See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Katherine:                  

Hello and welcome. I’m Katherine Banwell, your host for today’s program. Today we’ll discuss how you can be proactive in your lung cancer care to partner with your healthcare team to make the best care and treatment decisions for you. Joining us today is Dr. Jessica Bauman. Welcome, Dr. Bauman. Would you please introduce yourself?

Dr. Bauman:              

Absolutely, thank you so much for inviting me here today. My name is Jessica Bauman, and I am a thoracic and head and neck oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Here I am also the associate program director for our hematology/oncology fellowship program as well as one of the disease site leaders of one of our research teams.

Katherine:                  

Excellent, thank you. A reminder that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you.

Dr. Bauman, from my understanding, there are two main types of lung cancer – small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Would you provide a brief overview of how these two types of lung cancer differ?

Dr. Bauman:             

Absolutely. So, I think it’s important for any new patient who’s coming in, to see me or any medical provider. The first thing we need to establish when we are thinking about a lung cancer diagnosis is what the cells look like under the microscope. And the simplest way to think about this is either they look like small cell lung cancer, or they look like non-small cell lung cancer.

And that really can decide what kind of treatment we need to pursue. For small cell lung cancer – small cell lung cancer can be a more aggressive lung cancer that certainly can spread throughout the body and requires more urgent treatment in general when we’re thinking about the speed in which we need to start to treat patients for this cancer. For non-small cell lung cancer, in general, we don’t have to start treatment as quickly as we need to for small cell. And there is a lot more information right now that we need other than just the simple non-small cell lung cancer diagnosis. We need to know whether it is adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma, which are further subdivided.

And then we often need even more information about those subtypes to be able to decide ultimately what the best treatment plan is.

Overall, I would say about 15% of lung cancers are small cell. So, they’re more rare. And about 80% to 85% of lung cancers are non-small cell. And the most frequent kind of non-small cell lung cancer right now is adenocarcinoma. It didn’t used to be that way. Squamous cell carcinoma actually used to be more common, but in more recent years, adenocarcinoma is becoming more common. And interestingly, it’s also becoming more common in women.

Katherine:                  

Why is it becoming more common?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, part of that is we think that the demographics are changing somewhat in terms of lung cancers. So, the traditional risk factor, of course, of lung cancer is smoking, however, not all patients who have lung cancer were smokers. And we are seeing, in fact, more people being diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked or, in fact, are light smokers. And so, we think that that is likely playing a role.

Katherine:                  

Before we move into testing and staging, are there any common misconceptions you hear when you see new lung cancer patients for the first time?

Dr. Bauman:              

Sometimes I see people think, “Oh, lung cancer is a death sentence.” I certainly see people say that. But I think that one of the wonderful parts about being a lung cancer oncologist right now is our treatment options have really been revolutionized in the last 10 to 20 years. And we have more options right now, and we have a better understanding of this cancer, then we ever have had.

And so, I do think that I look with more optimism at this diagnosis, obviously, which is still quite devasting to patients and their families.

Katherine:                  

Right. Dr. Bauman, what testing should take place following a lung cancer diagnosis?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, this very much depends on how the cancer was diagnosed initially. So, some cancers are diagnosed on screening – lung cancer CTs right now – but other cancers are found incidentally, for other reasons. Or there are some that are diagnosed with a scan because somebody’s developing a symptom. So, in general, what I would say is that we always need good imaging essentially of the entire body when a lung cancer is suspected. Often this includes CAT scans, but this very commonly also includes a PET scan. And it will often include a brain MRI as well because the best way to the look at the brain is with an MRI.

Obviously, that can vary a little bit depending on what studies people have already had and what radiologic techniques are most accessible.

Katherine:                  

What about molecular testing and biopsies?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, sorry, I was sort of going on the imaging. But so, of course, you need full imaging. But the first thing you need to do that is paramount is establishing a histologic diagnosis, which goes to this initial thought of, “Is this small cell? Is this non-small cell? What is it?” So, if there is a lung mass that is suspected to be lung cancer, the first thing that happens is a biopsy as well as imaging. The imaging helps us establish, “Has this gone anywhere else? Does it involve the lymph nodes?” and helps us with the initial staging workup. Often there is a biopsy of the mass itself.

But there are often biopsies as well as the lymph nodes that are involved, in particular in the center of the chest called the mediastinum, because that also helps us establish the stage of the cancer.

And then if the cancer does look to have spread to somewhere else, we sometimes biopsy only that area or that area in addition to establish that it, in fact, has spread to a different place such as the liver or the bone. Once that biopsy is done, and once we know what type of lung cancer it is, then we also send more studies on the biopsy itself that help us determine what the best treatments are, in particular when we’re talking about what I call “systemic treatments.”

So, treatments that are going into the body and all over the body that involved immune therapies, chemotherapies, or targeted therapies. So, that extra testing that we do is something that’s called molecular testing.

It’s also called next generation sequencing. There are a bunch of different terminology that we use.

Katherine:                  

Okay. Dr. Bauman, would you walk us through how lung cancer is staged? And is it different for small cell vs. non-small cell lung cancer?

Dr. Bauman:              

Absolutely. So, as we talked about, the first thing that we do is we do get a biopsy to establish the diagnosis. The second piece is often if it looks to be a cancer that is only limited to the chest – so there is a mass and maybe some activities in lymph nodes that we’re concerned about but nowhere else – not only do we want to biopsy the mass itself, but we also want to know whether those lymph nodes are involved. So, those are biopsied because that will tell us the stage of the cancer. Staging very much depends on the size of the tumor itself, and then it also depends on, “Has it spread to lymph nodes in the center of the chest, and has it spread outside of the chest to other places?”

And so, early-stage lung cancers are just the primary cancer itself that has not spread anywhere else. More advanced stage lung cancers – things like Stage IIs and Stage III lung cancers – are ones that also involve the lymph nodes. And then a Stage IV lung cancer involves a lung cancer that has spread to somewhere outside of the body. And depending on the stage is really what determines the way we approach treatment for these patients.

Katherine:                  

And that is actually my next question. What do the results of these tests tell us about prognosis and treatment choices?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, they tell us stage, and, ultimately, prognosis and treatment choices are completely linked to the stage of a cancer. So, an early-stage lung cancer, often a Stage I or Stage II lung cancer, primarily our first choice of treatment is surgery. And if surgery is feasible for the patient – because, of course, it also depends on their other medical comorbidities and whether they can withstand a surgical resection of the cancer.

But usually, early-stage lung cancers we start with surgery. And then depending on what the pathology shows us, we sometimes include a course of chemotherapy afterwards to decrease the risk of the cancer coming back. More advanced lung cancers, so Stage III lung cancers, often involved what we call “multiple modalities.” So, for some patients we do a combination of chemotherapy and radiation in an attempt to cure the cancer. Often that is followed by immunotherapy. There are other patients who have Stage III lung cancer where we do chemotherapy and radiation and follow that with surgery.

So, it’s a very case-dependent decision algorithm, where it really depends on where the tumor is, the type of tumor, what the surgery would be, what the patient’s underlying health status is, etc.

And then if it is a Stage IV cancer, often we are really approaching this with systemic therapies. So, once a cancer has spread outside the lung, we traditionally think of this often as an incurable cancer. And there is a much more limited role of surgery and radiation, though I wouldn’t say that they’re absolutely off the table. Again, we sometimes think of these in sort of a case-by-case scenario. But in general, our approach for a Stage IV cancer is with some kind of systemic therapy. And that completely depends on all those special tests that we do that we were talking about that we send on that initial biopsy.

Katherine:                  

What about the significance of chromosomal abnormalities?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, what I would say is, what we do for, in particular, in the setting of a Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis right now, is we send molecular testing on the biopsy samples of these patients, in particular if they have adenocarcinoma.

And the reason we do this, what this gives us, is it tells us about the DNA of the tumor, and whether there are genes in the tumor that are changed in some way that are affecting the cancer’s ability to grow. And the reason that’s so important, is there are new treatments that really capitalize on those changes in the tumor to be able to stop the cancer from growing. The best example of this is for people who have something called an EGFR mutation.

And there are multiple different kinds of mutations. I call it “alphabet soup” because there are so many different letters and numbers.

But if people have an EGFR mutation that we think is one of the primary reasons they have this cancer growing, there are pills that target that EGFR protein that stop the cancer from growing. But if they don’t have that mutation, then those pills are not gonna do them any good.

And so, that is really where lung cancer treatment and diagnosis has become so personalized based on, of course the person itself, but also the characteristics of their tumor.

Katherine:                  

How can patients advocate for a precise lung cancer diagnosis, and why is that important?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, it’s, of course, important because it changes everything that they would be able to be offered in terms of treatment. And so, I think that it is important to, one, really understand what your lung cancer is. Right? What is the stage? What are the treatment options? And if there are treatment options that are not options for you, why is that? And is that because of special testing that has been done? So, I think it’s always important to ask, “Are there other special tests that I need to have on my tumor or on the biopsy?”

And if patients have questions about what options that they have, I think it’s important for them to understand why some options are theirs, and why other options may not be good options for them, and how their physician is making those decisions. Because I do think the more you understand about this, the better you can advocate for the types of treatments you can access.

Katherine:                  

Absolutely. We just covered some of this, but when deciding on a treatment approach with a patient, what do you take into account when making the decision?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, we take into account all of the things that we’ve been talking about. Of course, the No. 1 most important part is the histology, so what the kind of cancer is. No. 2 is what the stage is. And then No. 3 is the health characteristics of that patient.

Do they have underlying health problems that would impact the types of treatment that we would consider? And then ultimately, what are the goals of the patient? Right? So, of course, we have lots of different options, but it’s going to be important to partner with the patient and their family to understand where they are in their life and what kinds of treatments are feasible and acceptable to them.

Katherine:

What about treatment side effects? Do you take that into consideration?

Dr. Bauman:              

Absolutely. So, I always talk about my two primary goals for when I’m treating a patient is 1.) is to help them live as long as they can, and No. 2 is to help them live as well as they can. And I do think it is critical to understand the side effects of our treatments and how that may impact the patient and what their underlying issues are. So, for example, if I have a patient who comes to me who already has significant neuropathy because of a prior diagnosis of some kind, we need to strongly consider the types of treatments we’re using to consider one that doesn’t cause neuropathy.

Right? And often there are different treatments that we have where we can really consider the side effects and quality of life for patients in terms of what we have. I’ll also say that treatments and the supportive care that we have to offer have become better over time. So, yes, of course, we give toxic treatments, but we definitely are able to support people better with the side effects that they have to try to minimize those and make it as tolerable as we can.

Katherine:                  

What do you feel is the patient’s role in this decision, and how does shared decision making come into play?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, I think the patient’s role is, of course, this is their body and their lives. Right? I think that it very much is a decision that we make together. And of course, as a lung cancer expert, yes, we’re gonna talk about what we recommend as what we think is, sort of, the gold standard treatment.

But you can’t make anybody do anything. Right? You want people to be their own advocate in terms of their health. And so, I need to know how someone is feeling. I need to know if they’re having significant side effects from treatment. And so, I think the more they can tell me, the more they can ask questions, the more they can understand their illness, the better we can partner to be able to face it together.

Katherine:                  

Dr. Bauman, now that we’ve discussed factors that go into the treatment choice, would you walk us through the currently available lung cancer treatment approaches and who they might be right for?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, we talked about this a little bit, but I would say, so, certainly, the different types of lung cancer treatment depends on the stage of the cancer.

But in general, I’m thinking about the broad categories that we have. So, number 1 being surgery. So, surgery is absolutely one of the most important aspects of lung cancer treatment that we have and is one of the ways in which it is possible to cure lung cancer. So, surgery can happen both as an open surgery, but there are also more minimally invasive surgeries now that have also revolutionized the way they can do surgery in lung cancer. And so, that absolutely plays a very significant role in the treatment of lung cancer.

The second broad approach that I would say is that of radiation.  So, radiation also plays a very critical role in lung cancer, often more in advanced-stage disease for patients who have, for example, Stage III disease, where the treatment that we consider is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation also with curative intent.

So, the idea behind this is that it’s cancer that is still in the chest, but it has spread to the lymph nodes in the chest, and a combination of chemotherapy and radiation may still be able to cure patients of this cancer. And so, radiation also can play a critical role. And interestingly, in small cell – which we’ve spoken a little bit less about – radiation and chemotherapy play a very important role in small cell, and often surgery plays less of a roll in small cell. And so, our treatment approach using radiation is in both of these kinds of cancers, and often we’re doing a full course of radiation also in an attempt to cure the cancer for the patient.

The last, sort of, broad category of treatment that I would say is what I call “systemic treatments.” So, that is targeted treatment. That is chemotherapy. And that is immune therapy.

And what we use of those three types of treatments completely depends on the patient’s stage and more information about that patient’s tumor, in particular, the molecular testing as well as what we say is called PD-L1, which is a marker on the tumor that tells me about the responsiveness to immunotherapy.

Often, we use a combination of many of these treatments. So, there are patients who get surgery and then chemotherapy. There are patients who get chemotherapy and radiation and then surgery. And there are patients who get only what we call systemic therapies.

I will also say it’s important to note that for radiation, although there’s a proportion of people that we use radiation with curative intent for a long period of time – so, a six-week course of radiation – we also use radiation to help with symptom management if someone’s having a specific problem that’s causing them a symptom where radiation may help.

The classic example of that is pain. So, if they have a spot in the bone that is causing them a lot of pain, a short course of radiation to shrink that tumor where that is, can be very helpful. And so, radiation we can also use to help with palliation of symptoms. The other things that I’m not getting into significantly today, but are also there, are there are other types of procedures that have become more common where you can go in, for example, with an interventional radiologist and do an ablation of a tumor.

Our interventional pulmonologists also do significant amount of ability to access the lungs and the lymph nodes to be able to help with diagnosis, but they can also do something like a debulking procedure where they can get rid of some of the cancer to stop it from bleeding.

They can also stent open the cancer to help people breathe better. So, there are multiple different other team members who also are really critical to our patient’s care.

Katherine:                  

Yeah. How do clinical trials fit into the treatment plan?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, clinical trials are very important in all of our decision making. So, there are many different kinds of clinical trials, but clinical trials are where we are offering the newest potential treatment options for patients. And there are some clinical trials where it’s a brand-new drug that’s never been in a person before, but there are also clinical trials of drugs that we use from a different disease that has been effective, and now it has good evidence, potentially, in lung cancer, and so it’s being used in lung cancer. There are also trials of new combinations of treatments.

So, for example, one of the most recent, sort of, classic treatment-changing trials was a large trial where everybody who had chemotherapy and radiation for Stage III lung cancer, then received a year of immune therapy vs. not receiving immune therapy to see if that new treatment would help them live longer or would prolong their survival.

And in fact, that trial was very positive, and so it changed the way we treat Stage III lung cancer. So, again, these are just examples of types of clinical trials. But clinical trials are where we are finding out what may be the next best treatments for patients.

And so, when I’m thinking about a treatment approach to a patient, I’m incorporating all of the things that we talked about, but I’m also then thinking about, “Are there clinical trials that may also be relevant to them for their specific situation?” whether that is a clinical trial that involves surgery in some way, or whether that’s a clinical trial that involves a new drug, whether it’s a clinical trial that’s offering a new kind of supportive care.

So, there are lots of different kinds of clinical trials that may be relevant to patients.

Katherine:                  

Are there emerging approaches for treating lung cancer that patients should know about?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, absolutely. I think that there are so many clinical trials that are going on right now for all sorts of different lung cancers.

I think one of the amazing parts about lung cancer right now is how, as I said before, how personalized it has become, and how each individual, depending all of the different factors we talked about, what treatments are best for them. But it also depends on there also may be clinical trials that are specific for that person. And so, for example, if you have a new diagnosis of Stage IV cancer, and you have an EGFR mutation or an ALK mutation, you want to know about clinical trials that are specific to that population because for you, those are what are most relevant for you.

If you have a new diagnosis of a Stage III lung cancer, then you wanna know, “What are the clinical trial options for patients who have Stage III lung cancer?” And so, there are many clinical trials that are asking, sort of, the next best question of, “How can we improve the current standard of care?” And often there really are trials in each of these different areas. So, it’s not just a one-size-fits-all.

Katherine:                  

Some patients can be fearful when it comes to clinical trials. What would you say to someone who might be hesitant in participating in one?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, I very much understand that. I think any kind of treatment can be a scary thing. But I think, as I said before, I think the more that you can understand about your cancer and understand about the science and the research, it helps you then understand where the trial fits in terms of your treatment options.

I think that if you understand what to expect from the treatment that you’re getting, and then what the plan B and plan C could look like, I think that piece of it is also important. And you know, I think that one of the hardest parts about lung cancer right now is even though we have all of these new promising therapies and multiple new approved drugs, with a diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer, most of the time the cancer learns to grow. And so, even though we have treatments that work really well, there will be a time for most people where the cancer starts to grow, and we need to think about, “Well, why is the cancer growing?”

And often, that is the setting where clinical trials are very relevant because clinical trials are often thinking about just that, “Well, why is the cancer becoming resistant? What is different about the cancer now? And is there some change that would make it relevant for you to do one specific trial over another specific trial?”

Katherine:                  

Well, and that leads us to treatment monitoring. Once a patient has started treatment, how do you know if it’s working?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, we do regular imaging. So, once you have a diagnosis of lung cancer, a CAT scanner will become your friend. In general, depending on what stage of lung cancer you have, you will have a bunch of imaging up front, and then once a treatment plan is put into place, after that treatment has either been completed or started, you will be monitored, in general, regularly for the lung cancer diagnosis. Now, after surgery, that will be for more for surveillance to make sure that the lung cancer doesn’t come back. But if it is more in the setting of a Stage IV lung cancer, then the imaging really helps us determine, “Is the treatment working or not?”

And so, after we start a treatment, usually anywhere between six and eight weeks, we repeat imaging to see, “Is this working? Is it smaller? Is it the same? Has it grown?”

And based on that imaging, and based on how the patient is doing with the treatment, we then decide, “Do we continue this treatment, or do we need to change to a new treatment?” And so, we regularly monitor the patient’s cancer through regular imaging.

Katherine:                  

Let’s talk about patient self-advocacy. Patients can sometimes feel like they’re bothering their healthcare team with their comments and questions. But why is it important for patients to speak up when it comes to their symptoms and their side effects?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, this, I would say, it’s a partnership. The bottom line is, and if I don’t know that something is going on, I can’t help to solve the problem. And if I don’t know about something, a new symptom that could be, potentially, majorly concerning, patients can also get really sick or even end up in life-threatening situations. And so, ignoring things or just hoping things will go away is not in a patient’s best interest.

I think that it is critical that patients are their own self-advocate. I think that I say that often, and I’ve already said that a couple of times on this, but we don’t know unless we’re hearing from them what’s going on. And so, it is so important for patients to keep us updated if they’re worried about something. Certainly, we see them very frequently, and so they can often tell us at their visits what’s going on. But overall, the in-between time is just as critical because it is often the treatments that we give can cause side effects at any time. And so, it is really important that we know about anything that’s going on and for patients to always give us a call.

I mean, that’s the bottom line is, is that if they’re worried about something, we need to know about it.

Katherine:                 

What supportive care options are there for patients who may have pain management difficulties or even emotional support?  Where do they start?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, there are often many different kinds of supportive care for patients. I would say that oncologists, of course, are one layer of supportive care. We do a lot of help with symptom management and often even pain management as well as coping and emotional support. However, there are also other people often within cancer centers that are also available to help. And this includes social workers. It also includes psychologists and psychiatrists.

And then the other thing that I think is really important to mention is that we know for patients who have lung cancer or an advanced lung cancer diagnosis, that integrating a palliative care team – a supportive and palliative care team – early into their diagnosis actually helps them live longer as well as better. They have better quality of life, and they have decreased problems with mood.

And so, we know that supportive care and palliative care, specifically in lung cancer, is particularly helpful for both patients and their caregivers. And so, it’s important for patients to also know that there is a whole team, that I think of as, sort of, an extra layer of support, that can help them with symptom management as well as with coping with the day-to-day of what can be a devastating diagnosis.

Katherine:                  

Yeah. That’s really great advice. To close, what would you like to leave patients with? Are you hopeful?

Dr. Bauman:              

So, I would say I am absolutely hopeful. I think that it is so important to know how many changes have happened in lung cancer in the last decades and how much more research is going on everyday to try to improve the care that we can deliver. And so, it’s a great time to be a lung cancer oncologist.

But we also have so much more work to be done.

Katherine:                  

Dr. Bauman, thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr. Bauman:              

Absolutely, my pleasure.

Katherine:                  

And thank you to our audience for joining us as well. Please fill out the survey that you’ll receive following the program. It helps us to plan future lung cancer programming. And thank you to all of our partners.

To learn more about lung cancer and to access tools to help you become a more proactive patient, visit PowerfulPatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for joining us.

 

Key Next Steps After a Lung Cancer Diagnosis: Expert Advice

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Key Next Steps After a Lung Cancer Diagnosis: Expert Advice from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo. 

Following a lung cancer diagnosis, the actions that a patient takes may impact their long-term care and treatment options. Dr. Erin Schenk, a lung cancer specialist, lists key steps a patient should consider post-diagnosis.

Dr. Erin Schenk is an assistant professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. Learn more about Dr. Schenk and her lung cancer research here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Diagnosed with Lung Cancer? Why You Should Seek a Second Opinion

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Diagnosed with Lung Cancer? An Expert Outlines Key Steps

Transcript:

Dr. Erin Schenk:

As a medical oncologist who takes care of lung cancer patients, I would recommend that if you or a loved one are diagnosed with lung cancer, going to your meeting with the cancer doctor report the surgeon or the radiation doctor with a couple of main questions to ask in order to better understand your diagnosis and the treatment options.

So, the first one is what stage and stage is a descriptor that we use that talks about how far the lung cancer has spread if it’s spread at all. And sometimes, this involves additional testing to give you the best, most accurate answer. Oftentimes, patients are diagnosed with scans, but what’s also – excuse me, scans of the chest, but what’s also really important is better understanding whether or not lymph nodes in the middle of the chest are also involved.

This can require either a PET scan or occasionally procedures where tissue, the lymph nodes biopsied, and tissue samples are taken to see if the lung cancer has spread to those lymph nodes. PET scans are also able to better tell us whether or not lung cancer has spread outside of the lungs. And additionally, and MRI of the head can often be a really critical piece of information to better understand whether or not the lung cancer has spread to the brain. Unfortunately, lung cancer is one of those cancers that can spread to the brain tissue.

So, the first piece of information and more tests might be needed, is stage.

The second piece of information that’s very important is what type of lung cancer, and sometimes, this occurs hand-in-hand with better understanding stage. Usually, this involves a biopsy, so a sample of the tissue needs to be taken and then looked at underneath a microscope by a pathologist who are doctors who help us identify which type of lung cancer it is that a patient has. And then the final thing to ask your care team or your doctor is do I need additional molecular testing?

Molecular testing is a critical piece of information in order for doctors like me to help take care of lung cancer patients. Molecular testing lets us know what role immunotherapy might play in your diagnosis. It also lets us know whether or not targeted therapy which are oral pills we sometimes call TKIs are appropriate for your disease and your stage. These pieces of information, so stage, what type of lung cancer, and if molecular testing is necessary, these are, I think, the three critical pieces that you need going forward to help your cancer doctor and team better formulate a plan that is right for you.

Finally, I’d like to add in that if you are in a situation where you would like a second opinion, or you would like to get more thorough answers, I would encourage you to look for an academic center or a large medical center that has specialists who focus in on lung cancer. We are often very happy to see patients and talk with them about their treatment plan if any other tests or evaluations are needed to help you feel confident in the plan that your doctors closer to home have put together. That’s it.

Why You Should Consider a Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer Treatment

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Why You Should Consider a Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer Treatment from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. Erin Schenk, a lung cancer expert and researcher, explains why patients with lung cancer should consider a clinical trial and the role trials plays in clinical care.

Dr. Erin Schenk is an assistant professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. Learn more about Dr. Schenk and her lung cancer research here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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What You Need to Know About Lung Cancer Research

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Transcript:

Dr. Erin Schenk:

We have a very active clinical trial practice in the lung cancer world for one reason alone, and that’s that while our current therapies are good, we can still do better. Lung cancer accounts for significant cancer-related deaths in the United States and the world. And we wanna work to try and improve how well patients do and also improve how many patients we are able to cure. Clinical trials can be at any step of your workup or treatment.

So, even patients with earlier-stage disease meaning lung cancer where we can resect it with surgery, there are a number of clinical trials going on right now to try to better improve the outcomes we see with our normal standards of care. So, whether you are having a lung cancer removed by surgery whether you’re receiving chemotherapy and radiation and immunotherapy whether your lung cancer has happened to spread outside of the lungs, there are clinical trials available at every step in the game.

And I would really encourage you to ask your cancer care team or your doctor about whether or not clinical trials might be available in your area. Because often, they can help identify new targets or other ways of trying to attack the vulnerabilities of your lung cancer.

If you are considering a clinical trial, there are a number of important questions to find out from the clinical trial team as well as your cancer care team. Some of the things are really practical, logistical questions and one of those is, “How often do I need to come to clinic? How many more schedule visits do I need?”

Usually, with clinical trials, upfront so before you get on the clinical trial or once you start receiving the clinical trial medicine or therapy, often there are more frequent visits in that initial time period. But after things are – after you’ve had several treatments with the trial medicine, often it becomes more standard of care meaning visiting once every three weeks for blood work and a visit with your team and then infusion.

So, it’s often a little more work up front, and then it gets back to the usual expectations of how often you have to be in our offices. So, I think those logistical concerns are very real because especially for larger institutions, sometimes, coming to our campuses can be a bit of a challenge. So, that would be one. I would recommend discussing logistics. Discussing with your team as to why they think this would be a trial for you is important.

Occasionally, we are able to screen for certain markers or certain things that are expressed on the cancer cells and then match you with clinical trials that try to target those specific molecules or proteins or flags that are on the surface of the cancer cell. So, oftentimes, we try to match patients up to a specific clinical trial, so better understanding why that one was recommended. And then I would ask your team to also discuss what are the side effects that have been noticed.

Often with these clinical trial medicines, we don’t have a lot of experience with how well patients do on these therapies. But sometimes, we can give you an idea in terms of what we expect and what we will watch closely for. So, I think logistics are important, why your doctor or your cancer team thinks this is a good trial for you, and then finally, what sort of side effects have been noticed as best we can tell with this new trial medicine.

Lung Cancer Treatment Advances: What are Antibody Drug Conjugates?

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Lung Cancer Treatment Advances: What are Antibody Drug Conjugates? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Dr. Erin Schenk, a lung cancer expert, discusses emerging research around antibody drug conjugates (ADC) and how this therapy works to treat patients with lung cancer.

Dr. Erin Schenk is an assistant professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. Learn more about Dr. Schenk and her lung cancer research here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Why You Should Consider a Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer Treatment

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Transcript:

Dr. Erin Schenk:

Some interesting research that’s coming to the forefront in the lung cancer field are using new medicines called antibody-drug conjugates. And so, these medicines, I think of as another type of targeted therapy. So, what happens is that cancer cells express certain proteins or certain flags on their surface that aren’t often found on other normal cells.

And what these ADC drugs are able to do is that they’re able to seek the cells that express certain flags, and then deliver a chemotherapy payload directly to those cancer cells. One trial from the recent ASCO annual meeting from this year, 2020, was looking at an ADC that targeted HER2 which can sometimes be over-expressed by lung cancer cells.

And they had good initial reports in terms of patients being able to have disease control for some time and minimal side effects.

So, I think in general the idea of ADCs or looking for surface markers on the cancer cells to try to in a more targeted fashion deliver the chemotherapy payload, I think this is a really exciting area of investigation as well as a new potential therapy for our patients with lung cancer.

Lung Cancer Treatment: What Is Immunotherapy?

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Lung Cancer Treatment: What Is Immunotherapy? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. Erin Schenk, a lung cancer specialist, provides an in-depth explanation of what immunotherapy is, and its role in treating lung cancer.

Dr. Erin Schenk is an assistant professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. Learn more about Dr. Schenk and her lung cancer research here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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What You Need to Know About Lung Cancer Research

Transcript:

Dr. Erin Schenk:

Immunotherapies are powerful new medicines that we available to us as medical oncologists and especially within patients with lung cancer. Immunotherapies are medicines that help to activate your body’s own defenses to go seek out and kill the cancer cells.

So, immunotherapies prevent stop signs on the cancer cells.

What happens is that as the cancer cells grow and as they become more resistant to your body’s natural defenses, it puts up certain stop signs. And these stop signs prevent your body’s immune system from attacking them. Immunotherapies, basically, it cuts off that stop sign so that your immune cells can go and attack the cancer cells.

Immunotherapies play a role in the treatment of many lung cancer patients, nearly all. So, immunotherapy has recently found a role in curative-intent therapy meaning we give these treatments to you to try and cure you of your cancer completely. And that’s in patients who have advanced lung cancer that they can’t surgically resect, or it’s not safe or feasible to cut out, but it hasn’t spread to anywhere else in the body.

So, often, those patients receive chemotherapy and radiation together, and then they receive immunotherapy for a year. So, that’s one set of patients we treat with immunotherapy. And then most other patients with lung cancers especially metastatic lung cancer or cancer that’s spread elsewhere in the body, immunotherapy plays a role in treatment regardless of what type of lung cancer that you have with a couple exceptions which I’ll get to.

So, first, if patients have small cell lung cancer that has spread in other parts of the body, immunotherapy’s an important part of the initial treatment regimen combined with chemotherapy. That’s one of the first advances in decades for patients with small-cell lung cancer. The other situation where we use immunotherapy in metastatic disease is with non-small cell lung cancer. And here we have data and studies to support the use of immunotherapy either alone or in combination with chemotherapy medicines.

And the determinate, there’s a number of factors we use to help determine whether a patient can get immunotherapy alone or immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy, that’s based on PD-L1 status. So, that’s the immunotherapy marker that we look for on cancer cells. If the PD-L1 status is high enough on the cancer cells, we can discuss with our patients using immunotherapy alone.

If that PD-L1 marker on the cancer cells is not high, then we can use immunotherapy plus chemotherapy in our patients. One area where we’re still not quite sure how to best use immunotherapy are in patients with driver mutations or some of these mutations that we look for with special molecular testing like EGFR, ALK fusions, ROS1 fusions.

What we’ve been learning over time is that immunotherapy alone does not appear to help patients do better for longer. We’ve also been learning through clinical trials that immunotherapy combined with TKIs which is the targeted therapy patients receive if they have one of these driver mutations, that does not appear to be effective or safe from some of these early clinical trials.

There’s some debate right now amongst my national/international colleagues as to whether or not giving immunotherapy plus chemotherapy is the right choice for these patients after TKIs or targeted therapies stop working. It’s really up to the discussions that you have with your doctor and whether or not they think immunotherapy and chemotherapy could be right in that situation.

Cancer Survivors: Managing Emotions After Cancer Treatment

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Since the 1980s, doctors have tried to describe the stages cancer survivors normally go through. Most divide them into a version of the three stages described below:

Acute Survival (Living With Cancer) – Covers cancer diagnosis and any subsequent treatment. During this time, patients will undergo treatment and may be invited to participate in a clinical trial to study new cancer treatments. Sometimes services are offered to patients and their caregivers to address emotional, psychological and financial problems.

Prolonged survival (transient cancer): Post-treatment period during which the risk of recurrence is relatively high. Many patients are relieved that treatment has ended, but are concerned that they will not visit the oncologist regularly. During this stage, patients often visit the oncologist two to four times a year, depending on their circumstances.

Permanent survival (living after cancer): survival after treatment and long-term. Although two out of three survivors declare that their lives have returned to normal, a third affirms that they continue to have physical, psychosocial or economic problems. During this stage, most survivors are cared for again by their GP. Ideally, they have developed a long-term follow-up plan with the oncologist for their regular doctor to implement.

Social and Emotional Repercussions of Cancer

In addition to the physical effects of cancer, survivors experience psychological, emotional, and spiritual consequences. Many of them affect quality of life and can manifest many years after treatment. Here are some of the most common problems cancer survivors face:

Fear of Recurrence

Many survivors live in fear that the cancer will return at some point. In some cases, a major event, such as the anniversary of the diagnosis or the end of treatment with the oncologist, can trigger these feelings. Fear can be good if it encourages you to discuss your health changes with your doctor, but it can also cause unnecessary worry. Knowing your own body will help you distinguish between normal changes and more serious symptoms.

Pain

Grief is the natural result of loss. In cancer, losses refer to health, sexual desire, fertility, and physical independence. To overcome your pain, it is important to experience all of these feelings. Support groups and psychological assistance can help you deal with these problems.

Depression

It is estimated that 70% of cancer survivors experience depression at some point. Depression can be difficult to diagnose in cancer survivors, since the symptoms are very similar to the side effects of cancer treatment, such as weight loss, tiredness, insomnia, and inability to concentrate. In a 10-year follow-up study, symptoms of depression have been found to be associated with shorter survival, so seeking treatment for depression is essential.

Body Image and Self-esteem

Cancer survivors who have suffered amputations, disfigurements, and loss of organs such as the colon or bladder often have to overcome their problems to relate to themselves and to others. A negative body image and low self-esteem can affect the survivor’s ability to maintain relationships with their partner, which will have important consequences on their quality of life. Good communication is essential to maintain or regain intimacy after cancer. Consult a doctor if problems persist.

Spirituality

Many survivors feel that life takes on new meaning after cancer and renew their commitment to certain spiritual practices or organized religion. Research indicates that spirituality improves quality of life through a strong social support network.

Survivor’s Fault

Some people feel guilty about surviving cancer when others don’t. You may be wondering “Why me?” Or reevaluate your goals and ambitions in life. If you have a prolonged feeling of guilt, a psychotherapist, a member of the clergy, or a support group can help you express your feelings.

Relations

Possibly the biggest challenge cancer survivors face is how others react to their disease. Friends, coworkers, and family members may feel uncomfortable when discussing the diagnosis of cancer. They can keep silent, avoid you, or pretend that nothing has happened. Others may use humor to try to distract you and not think about your situation, instead of offering to talk about your problems. Cancer can be a long-lasting disease, so it is essential to overcome communication barriers.

Social and Work Life

Social and professional reintegration can be accompanied by many fears: concern about being exposed to a higher risk of infection, lack of enough energy to reach the end of the workday and anxiety about not being able to think clearly due to the so-called “neurological impairment by chemotherapy “or memory loss. In overcoming a life and death situation, many cancer survivors feel alienated from people who have not had the same experience and turn to other survivors for support and friendship.

You may be reluctant to reveal to your bosses and colleagues that you are receiving cancer treatment for fear of being treated differently or even losing your job and health insurance. This creates an atmosphere of uncertainty that contributes to emotional stress. Again, honest communication with your colleagues will help you overcome these feelings.

About the author: Diane H. Wong is copywriter at write essay for me service. She is also a professional nutritionist and plans to start her own blog to share her knowledge with others.

What You Need to Know About Lung Cancer Research

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What You Need to Know About Lung Cancer Research from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

As a lung cancer patient, why should you stay informed about research? Expert Dr. Heather Wakelee reviews what patients need to know.

Heather Wakelee, MD is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University. More about this expert here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Dr. Wakelee:

So, there’s so much happening in lung cancer research now, it is hard to really narrow it down to one thing to be specifically excited about. Where we have made so much progress in particular is with target treatments, and also with immune therapy. So, when we think about the targeted treatments, it’s only been about 15 years since we first learned about drugs that would specifically target the EGFR gene mutations.

And when we found a tumor with an EGFR gene mutation, we then had a medication we could give that would work better than chemo. And now we have five EGFR drugs available in the US. And then we found out about this ALK gene mutation that happen in some tumors. Now we have five drugs that work there. And the with ROS1, that was found, and now we’ve got four drugs that work there that are approved.

And it seems that we keep learning about more and more mutations, so those are mutations called NTRK and BRAF. And with all of those, we now have drug treatments, so it’s been very, very rapid discovery of specific gene mutations and drugs that work for that. And I think we’re continuing to see new targets being identified and new drugs being found.

And also, when those drugs stop working, better understanding why and what we can do to help them work longer, or what we can give next. So, that’s a very active area of research that’s exciting. And then we have the immune therapy. So, the ones that are available so far are drugs that block either PD-1 or PD-L1, and that's one of the really important stop signals for the immune system.

And tumors can use that stop signal to block an immune reaction to a tumor. But if you block that stop signal then the immune system can attack the cancer. So, that's really important, these PD-1, PD-L1 drugs.

We also know about another stop signal called CTLA-4, and there’re drugs that block that as well. And now, where there’s a ton of research is in trying to work with other parts of the immune system, other either pro-immune or anti-immune signals, and changing those in a way where we can improve the ability of the immune system to find the cancer cells and attack the cancer cells.

So, there are many, many studies being done with drugs, and especially in combinations, trying to get that response against the cancer from the immune system to be even stronger. And that’s, I think, where we’re making the most exciting headway now.

New and Improved Lung Cancer Treatment Options

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New and Improved Lung Cancer Treatment Options from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Are there new lung cancer treatment options that you should know about? Expert Dr. Heather Wakelee reviews the latest research. Looking for more information? Download the Find Your Voice Resource Guide here.

Heather Wakelee, MD is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University. More about this expert here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Dr. Wakelee:

So, the treatment of lung cancer has been changing very, very quickly. We’ve had a lot of new options that have become available in the last few years, and there’re new ones coming along all the time. When I started treating lung cancer, which was a number of years ago, we were able to treat and help people.

But our only real option when the cancer was metastatic was chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is still an important part of treatment for many people, but now we have other options. So, starting about 15 years ago, people were able to identify that some tumors had specific genetic changes. We also call these molecular changes, or gene mutations, or just mutations in the tumor. They have a lot of different names.

But when we do find them, these are things like EGFR or ALK or ROS or BRAF or MET, we actually have different treatment options that only work for tumors that have those specific genetic changes, and don’t work in tumors that don’t have those. So, when we talk about genetic changes a lot of people think, “Oh, that’s something that I’ve inherited.”

These are not things that are inherited. This is not something that’s in the whole person. It’s just in the tumor. So, it’s a mutation that happened in the DNA of the cell, and that cell then became the cancer. And depending on what that mutation or mutations are, we still can have chemotherapy, and that can work.

But for specific ones, and specifically EGFR, ALK, ROS, BRAF, we know that there are pill drugs and oral medication that actually is gonna be better than chemo, at least for a period of time, if a cancer has that specific mutation.

So, it’s really, really important to figure that out. It’s not something a doctor can sort out just by looking at the patient or looking at the tumor under the microscope. We have to do special testing, looking at the tumor DNA.

And we now have ways of looking for those mutations, not just in the tumor tissue, but also sometimes with blood. So, we can draw a blood test and look for those as well when there’s a tumor that’s shedding the DNA. So, it’s really important to think about that. And we now have a whole host of medications that we can offer people when we the find these mutations that we didn’t used to have, even a few years ago.

And, actually, if you think back over the last five years, we’ve had new drugs approved, a few of them every year, for these specific gene mutation tumors, so that’s really, really exciting. The other thing that’s changed dramatically just in the last five years is what we call immune therapy.

So, when we think about the different types of treatment, chemotherapy works by poisoning DNA. And in order to make a new cell, you have to make new DNA. Tumors are doing that more than a lot of normal tissue, and so we’re able to give chemotherapy and specifically hurt tumors and not the rest of the person very much.

With the targeted treatments where we find a gene target and where there’s a gene mutation in a tumor, those are medications that specifically hit that altered gene, that altered protein made by the gene. And then they work really, really well. What immune therapy does is it actually changes the way your body’s own immune system interacts with the tumor. So, we have a lot of types of immune cells, but the ones that are involved in really fighting the cancer directly are called T cells.

And so, normally, a T cell would recognize something that’s foreign like an abnormal-looking cell that’s a cancer, and attack it. But we have a lot of different systems in our body that stop the T cells from recognizing normal tissue and attacking it.

And one of the best systems for that is something called PD-1 and PD-L1. And so, if you have a T cell and it sees a PD-L1 signal on tissue, it assumes that that tissue was normal tissue and it doesn’t attack. But if you can hide that PD-L1 signal, then if it’s a T cell, a part of the immune system comes in and doesn’t see the PD-L1, it doesn’t get the stop signal. It’s not told to not attack. So, it could attack the tumor better.

And I’m not describing it well because it’s so complicated. There are a lot of different factors that help a T cell know whether to attack or not to attack. But, again, one of these key stop signals is the PD-1, PD-L1 interaction. And so, scientists were able to develop medications that can block PD-1 or PD-L1. And when those medications are in the body, if a tumor is using that particular stop signal as a way to hide from the immune system, when you give the medication that blocks it then the tumor is no longer hiding.

And then the immune system, those T cells, can come in and attack. So, these immune treatments, and there are now a lot, and so these are drugs, like pembrolizumab, also called Keytruda; nivolumab, which also called Opdivo; durvalumab, which is called IMFINZI. And there are many, many others. Those medications have now been shown to really, really help to fight cancer, particularly when the tumor is using that PD-L1 signal. But they can also be combined with chemotherapy and then they work even if there’s not a lot of PD-L1 in the tumor. So, again, it’s a very complex story.

But where we’ve seen dramatic improvements in treatment is we have targeted treatments when the genes are – there are specific genes mutating in tumors. We have immune therapy, which worked for a lot of other people. And sometimes when there’s also gene mutation, but not always, we still have chemotherapy. And then there’s ongoing research with a lot of different medications. Many of them are focusing on better ways to get the immune system to work against cancers beyond what we can already do.

Being Empowered: The Benefits of Learning About Your Lung Cancer

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The Benefits of Learning About Your Lung Cancer from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

As a lung cancer patient, why should you stay informed about research? Expert Dr. Heather Wakelee provides her advice. Find your voice with the Pro-Active Patient Toolkit Resource Guide, available here.

Heather Wakelee, MD is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University. More about this expert here.

See More From the The Pro-Active Lung Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Diagnosed with Lung Cancer? Why You Should Seek A Second Opinion

Transcript:

Dr. Wakelee:

So, as a patient living with lung cancer, you have many options today that you wouldn’t have had 5, 10, 15 years ago, which is wonderful.

Because things are changing so quickly, it’s very hard for physicians and other care providers to keep up with all of the latest information. It’s especially hard if you are seeing an oncologist who not only has to keep up with everything that’s happening in lung cancer, but also everything that’s happening in breast cancer, and colon cancer, and melanoma, and so many other diseases.

And so, while everybody does their best to know the latest and greatest in research, and all of the new drug approvals, sometime that’s just possible. So, as a patient, you wanna make sure that you, focused on your particular disease, are up-to-date on what you can possibly know about the best ways to treat your disease, so you can talk to your physician and make sure that he or she also knows about those, and is using that latest information to help you get the best possible care.

There’s also a lot of ongoing clinical trials. And being able to ask about those and know what may or may not make sense for you, is also a reasonable thing to be able to talk with your doctor about.

And sometimes that involves continuing your care with your doctor, but also getting another opinion, particularly at a research center where they might have access to more trials, new drugs, some of which might be better than what’s available, and some of which might not be. But without talking to people about that, you’re not gonna be able to know that.

And that’s why it’s really important to do what you can or your family can do to be educated and know what is going on in the field of lung cancer, so you can get the best possible care.

Fertility Preservation in People with Cancer

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This podcast was originally published by Cornell Weill Cancer Cast, on March 22, 2019, here.

The Empowered Lung Cancer Thriver and Expert Chat

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The Empowered Lung Cancer Thriver and Expert Chat from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Laura Levaas:

Hello, and welcome to this Patient Empowerment Network program, the empowered cancer survivor and expert chats. I’m your host, Laura Levaas, the lung cancer community manager for Patient Power, and a two-year survivor and thriver of lung cancer. This program is produced by Patient Power. We thank Celgene Corporation, Novartis, and Pfizer for their financial contributions to this program. They don’t have editorial control, but we do really appreciate them helping us make this program happen.

So, our guest today is Dr. Ross Camidge, the Director of Thoracic Oncology at the University of Colorado here in Denver. He’s also one of the top doctors in the U.S. for the very type of lung cancer that I have. It’s a rare mutation called ALK positive. And hopefully he can talk about that a little bit more later.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

We can talk about that until the cows come home.

Laura Levaas:

That’s good. Well, I’m excited to be interviewing somebody who is in the same town as me. So, you’re right down the road.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah, and we’re doing it virtually. Isn’t that crazy?

Laura Levaas:

It is crazy. So, we’re both in Denver, but we’re both online. So, I hope you’re having a good day. And thank you for joining us. So, can you estimate how many lung cancer patients you’ve worked with during your career?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

More than 1,000, I would have thought. So, I tend to see about 30 people a week, of whom about two or three of them are new each week. And then you can do the math. And then I’ve been here…it’ll be 15 years in October. So, someone really clever with a calculator can do that calculation, but it’s several thousand.

Laura Levaas:

That’s a lot.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yep.

Laura Levaas:

Is there a case that stands out to you in your career? Maybe somebody who beat the odds of their prognosis, or somebody that had a very interesting or unusual case?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, you know, it’s funny. I mean, there are lots of people who I’ve looked after who’ve inspired me in different ways. But the ones that I keep thinking about the young patients who were diagnosed before we knew about all these molecular sub-types of lung cancer.

And I remember one young guy. He was 21 years old. He was really into skateboarding and art. And his parents were busy getting a divorce at the time. And it was a total disaster to have a diagnosis of lung cancer, and he’s stuck in the middle. And his disease was incredibly aggressive, and he didn’t survive very long. And somewhere in me, it’s like, well, he must have had something. He must have had ALK; he must have had ROS1.

And these things weren’t even described at the time. And part of life is about timing. So, nobody wants to have lung cancer. But it’s a much better time to have lung cancer now than it was last year, and certainly last decade.

Laura Levaas:

Right. So, there is hope for people who are diagnosed now?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, I mean, I think that the best example of that is, people who now have Stage 4 lung cancer, the questions they have to ask are, “Shall I go for promotion in my job? Shall I go on this fun vacation? Am I gonna marry this person?” The same things that we all struggle with before a diagnosis of lung cancer. Because there used to come a time when you got a diagnosis of lung cancer, and the same conversation at least that the doctor was concerned was, “You’re about to drop down dead.” We phrased it differently, but you get the drift.

And now, those are completely separated by an unspecified amount of time, in the same way that we’re born and we die at some point in the future, and we don’t quite know when that’s gonna be. And so, we don’t have the two things – “Hi! Mrs. Jones! You’ve got a bouncing boy and they’re about to drop down dead.” Now, they’re separated by life. And we are gradually increasing the distance between those two events.

Laura Levaas:

I think that’s amazing. And this is a good segue, actually, for me to tell a little bit about my story. I don’t wanna get too far into the weeds. But my story, I think it was unique because I had a threemonth prognosis, basically, by the time they got a hold of me. I’d been misdiagnosed for about a year, which is pretty common, I think, with –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah.

Laura Levaas:

– lung cancer. You know, allergy symptoms, some migraine symptoms. And mine was actually caught, oddly enough, during a breast cancer screening. Because my mother is a breast cancer survivor, and she was diagnosed very young. So, my doctors have always been really proactive about that. But my original prognosis was three months. And that’s before they knew that I was ALK positive. So –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

So, who told you that you had three months?

Laura Levaas:

It was –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

That’s what drives me crazy, some well-meaning person in the emergency room.

Laura Levaas:

Yes. And I think it’s because when they discovered what I had, I had 50 brain mets and 50 spine mets, and my brain was swelling. And they were telling my family, “We’ve gotta get her into whole-brain radiation right away.”

We found out about two weeks later that I was ALK positive. So, they stopped the radiation, and I went right into taking Alectinib, which is a newer drug. And it was approved by the FDA I think about three months after I started taking it as first line for ALK.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

It’s all about timing.

Laura Levaas:

And then it stopped – yeah. Yeah. So, it’s kind of – I feel a bit like a champion. Because they said, “Well, you have three months.” And that can be a real bummer. And it’s a real shock to friends and family and my boyfriend at the time, who’s no longer. But here I am, 26 months later. And I feel great. And nobody ever thinks that I’m sick. They’re always shocked to find out that I have lung cancer. So –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

I think you’ve done great. And you’re still doing great.

Laura Levaas:

Thank you. And let me explain to our audience how I met you. One of the things that helped me have a positive outlook on being diagnosed with lung cancer is, No. 1, because I have this mutation, there was a targeted therapy available to me. And so, within six months, all of the cancer ground to a halt.

And I was basically able to resume most of my normal activities. I could drive again. I could go out to eat. I could do some normal things. But a friend of mine told me that there was a Facebook group for my specific type of cancer. And it was so valuable, and it helped me sort of like find my people. I refer to them affectionately as mutants because we’re all mutants together. But we share information. And they told me about your second opinion program, which I hope is okay to talk about on –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Sure.

Laura Levaas:

– this program. But that’s how I found out about you. And you’re now my oncologist. And I’m in a Phase 2 clinical trial for a drug that’s new to me. And I’m very excited about that.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

You haven’t started it yet, have you?

Laura Levaas:

I have. I started it last week.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Oh, you started last week, didn’t you?

Laura Levaas:

I did. I did. The first couple days, I felt weird. But now, I feel great. So, for those –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Laura Levaas:

– that are watching, just know I do think having a positive attitude will help you through those really tough times when you’re feeling low. Reach out to your sub-group. Reach out to the people who have what you have. Because they’ve been walking that path, and they can help you.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

I mean, I think that one of the things is – I mean, it’s the same like when doctors talk to doctors. You can do the shorthand. You don’t have to explain what you’ve got and what it means. You don’t have to explain to me that you weren’t a smoker. You can just sort of jump in and say, look, this is the stuff that’s happening with me. And they understand.

Laura Levaas:

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I am going to ask you a couple of quick questions. And then we got a lot of audience questions for you. So, I hope you’re ready.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yep. Bring it on.

Laura Levaas:

Lots of really good questions. So, before we transition into those, I wanted to ask whether you have noticed a mindset shift? You mentioned right at the beginning that this is the best time to be diagnosed with lung cancer because there are options. But are you noticing a mind shift in your patients?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah, I mean, I think there is. I mean, I think lung cancer has gone from being – or let me rephrase that. Certain sub-groups of lung cancer has gone from being this kind of embarrassing thing, that you were sort of hidden in a closet, and nobody knew a lung cancer survivor because they didn’t exist – to now, I can show a room full of people and you can’t pick out who’s the lung cancer patient and who’s their significant other in the picture because everybody looks the same. And that, to me, is huge success.

So, I mean, one of the things we did last year – and I may have shown you the picture that we have up in the clinic – is we actually had a survivors’ celebration.

Laura Levaas:

Awesome.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

And to get your invite, you had to be at least five years out from your diagnosis. And we invited 400 people. Now, to be honest, we messed up the timing, and we sent the invites out about two weeks late. But we still had about 100 people turn up –

Laura Levaas:

That’s great.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

– which was pretty awesome. And we took a big picture. And it’s framed and sitting up in the clinic, for the simple reason that when you’re first diagnosed, you know these people exist, but you don’t believe they’re real. And I wanted to be able to come outside and say, “See that guy there? Well, he’s 10 years out. And look, he still looks fine, and he’s leading a normal life.”

So, I don’t mean everybody’s gonna do that. But it’s gone from being this fantasy – I might win the lottery – to, well, I might graduate from high school. I mean, it becomes a much more realizable dream.

Laura Levaas:

Right. Well, what questions do you think patients should be asking when they’re first diagnosed? They go to the doctor. They’re like, “You have lung cancer.” What should a patient ask?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, some of the basics are, what’s the stage of the cancer? How far has it spread around the body? So, usually, at least in the USA, people are getting a PET scan and an MRI of their brain.That’s the kind of standard bread and butter. I mean, 10 year ago, probably the most common thing I would encounter in the second opinion is somebody who wouldn’t have scanned the brain. They were waiting until someone had symptoms before they scanned it, which was like, well, you’ve lost a few neurons by then.

Now, probably the big thing is, have they done molecular testing? And I think the education has been, that’s not a uniform box. If you find something, that’s great. But if somebody says, “Well, you don’t have a mutation,” the next question is, “Well, what have you looked for?” Because if you haven’t looked for A, B, and C, you don’t know that that’s not there. So, the things that we test for have become more expansive.

And then the last one – and it’s hard not to say this without sounding like a complete jerk, but I’m going to do it anyway – is that the disease has become super complex and super specialized. And you don’t have to have all of your treatment with a thoracic specialist, but you should have a relatively early appointment with a thoracic specialist to just check that you’re on the right path.

Laura Levaas:

Good. That’s –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Those are the three things.

Laura Levaas:

Okay. Those are really, really good things to ask. I wanted to ask also how long you’ve been involved in lung cancer clinical trials in the development of new medicines?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, I’ve been here, as I said, nearly 15 years. I trained before that amongst other places in Edinburg, in Scotland, which is where I did most of my training. And that’s where I first encountered lung cancer patients. And it was actually probably the very first – so, you were taken round to different centers in your training. And I landed in lung cancer. And I really liked the patients. And I kind of felt that they were … they were very undemanding. Often, many of them had smoked, and they were kind of feeling a little embarrassed. And so, they made you want to step towards them because they were kind of stepping away from you. And I also felt that it was kind of poised for a breakthrough. So, that was kind of how I got involved.

And then since I’ve been here, when I first arrived in Colorado, it was pretty well known for lung cancer. But it had not a huge clinical program. I think when I arrived, they put nine patients a year on clinical trials. And within a few years, we were putting more than 100 on. So, I really helped to build that. And then with my colleagues here, we’ve been able to build the program.

Laura Levaas:

What’s the best advice you can give someone who is newly diagnosed with cancer?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, the first thing is, for those of you who’ve seen The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first thing is, don’t panic.

Laura Levaas:

That’s good advice. That’s good advice.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

The thing is, what you do is, you get diagnosed. And there’s a period of time where the room – you just can’t hear anything, and you feel distant from it. And what you’ve gotta do is, you – absolutely, you can wallow in self-pity for a period of time. And then you have to get up and move on. And that’s when you say, okay, this is a problem like anything else in life. And I will figure out the best of all possible solutions.

Laura Levaas:

Absolutely. Conversely, Terry wanted to know, what is the biggest mistake patients make in decisionmaking about treatment?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, listening to people who say you only have three months to live.

Laura Levaas:

Yeah. That’s not good.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah. I don’t know what – I think perhaps believing that everything you see about cancer on the TV – which is everyone who’s bald and throwing up – must automatically apply to you. Or that that person down the street who died from a brain tumor automatically applies to you. I mean, so, cancer isn’t cancer. There are different diseases. And until you can find out, like you said, your peer group, you don’t know what the truth will be for you. And then you’re still gonna make your own rules up anyway.

Laura Levaas:

That’s true. That’s true. And I was thinking the other day, my needs when I was first diagnosed are very different than what they are now a few years later. Because in the beginning, I didn’t have coping skills. And I just didn’t know what to do. But you do develop them over time. And I remember a woman telling me, “Oh, you’ll figure it out.” And that made me really mad. But I see the wisdom –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah.

Laura Levaas:

Yeah. I see the wisdom in that now because you do figure it out over time.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

But how did you figure it out? How did you develop those coping skills? … Am I allowed to ask you questions?

Laura Levaas:

Oh, absolutely! Yeah, I think it was helpful, oddly enough, that I wasn’t allowed to drive and that I was in such a bad state. Because it allowed me to sort of withdraw from society for a while, withdraw from my work, withdraw from relationship drama. Because I ultimately ended up breaking up with my partner because he wasn’t capable of handling what I was going through, and he wasn’t supportive. So, all of the things that were familiar to me, like my job, my apartment, I retreated from all of that. And at the time, it sucked. But now, I’m like, that allowed me to have a perspective that was removed from everything. And I just –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

How old was your son at the time when you were diagnosed?

Laura Levaas:

Four.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

So, I mean, there’s an element of where you can withdraw from society, but you’ve got a 4-year-old.

Laura Levaas:

That’s right.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

So, how do you deal with that?

Laura Levaas:

Yeah. Well, I ended up moving in with my sister. Because at that time, I couldn’t drive, and I couldn’t take care of myself. So, I did rely really heavily on her. And their daughter is the same age as my son. So, they were going to school together. I relied very heavily on them, and I’m so thankful for that because that allowed me to just rest and heal. Because in the beginning – not to get too far in the weeds – but I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t be on my phone. I couldn’t be on the computer. Just no attention span whatsoever because of whole brain, I think. So, retreating from everything actually was good for me. And I’m also kind of a loner. So, I liked it, being alone too, oddly enough.

Good question.

I have another question from Christine C. She says, how long do you think it will take until lung cancer will be a chronically managed disease?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, I think for some people, it already is. So, I now have 10-year Stage 4 survivors who are still alive and still thriving, to use your word. So, for those people, it’s a reality. And I don’t know – as I said, people will make their own rules – I don’t know how long they will go. I mean, I honestly do not know how long I can control their disease. You just have to stay alive and in the game and hope that breakthroughs will happen.

Now, then the challenge is, okay, “Well, what about me? I don’t have ALK. I don’t have – whatever.” And you go, okay, well, so, everyone – we have to try and replicate the success of the ALK positive population with all of the other sub-types of lung cancer or the ones that don’t even have a label yet. And so, there’s plenty of work to do.

Laura Levaas:

Definitely. Leslie wants to know, what do you see in the near future for treatment of lung cancer? And she lists a couple of things like a fourth generation TKI, immunotherapy – a couple of things that I don’t even know what they are, SHP2, Protex, anything else?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah. I don’t know what Protex is, but I know what SHP2 is. So, first of all, so, the concept of the fourth generation TKI, I mean, I assume that’s because we have a third generation TKI and therefore, the next one must be called the fourth generation. So, I don’t know that the generations of TKI is going to be the immediate solution.

If I had to say what I think the future is gonna hold, there’s a couple of things. So, one is I think we can – and we’ll use ALK as an example. But really, ALK is this model system that everybody else with lung cancer might like to replicate. So, we’re really good at developing drugs that are great at suppressing one particular pathway that is driving some people’s cancer.

But the cancer still grows eventually. Usually now, with some of the drugs – like the one you’re on and the third-generation drug – is that they’re not growing because they’re turning back on the same pathway. What they’re doing is, they’re growing through some other pathway coming up. So, finding these other pathways, these so-called second drivers, is going to lead to rational combinations of drugs. That’s one way.

The other thing which is kind of the elephant in the room is, well we have these drugs. You have these fantastic responses on the scans. But if you stop the drug, the cancer starts to grow. And if you go back on the drug a week later, it’ll shrink down. So, you clearly haven’t killed all of the cells which are even sensitive to that drug. So, until we can address why we can’t get 100 percent cell kill – that’s a technical term – we’re never gonna deal with the elephant in the room, which is, why can’t we actually cure people?

And that’s a very different situation from, why does the cancer grow three years later? The question is, why, when you walk through the door and you have a great response on the scan, if you had a magic microscope, why is there still one in 1,000 cells left? And that to me is actually the horizon we need to look for.

Laura Levaas:

Okay. Okay. That’s a great answer. A few more questions. Will R. wants to know about a lung cancer vaccine.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Well, so, you could view that in a couple ways. So, if you think about how we use vaccines, we use them when we don’t have a disease to prevent us from getting that disease. We don’t really use a vaccine when we’ve already got the disease. So, if you’ve got chicken pox, I don’t vaccinate you for chicken pox. I treat the chicken pox. And so, lots of people are trying to develop vaccines, but they’re giving them in the wrong way. They’re giving them to somebody with an established lung cancer, and then they’re surprised that it doesn’t work. But that’s not what vaccines do.

The question is, could we find a way of saying, well, these are the people who are at highest risk for lung cancer, and give them something before they have lung cancer to reduce their risk? And the answer is, maybe. But if you can imagine, that’s a really difficult study to do. It would take years and years and years.

I’ve just come back from something called the World Conference on Lung Cancer, which was in Barcelona – tough life – but the biggest breakthrough there wasn’t about treatment. It was about a study that was actually done in Scotland about screening people. So, we’re pretty familiar with, if you smoke this much, you meet a certain criteria, and you go get a CT scan. But that’s no good if you’re not a smoker. You don’t meet those criteria.

So, they still have to look at a blood test. And they can show that that particular blood test, it wasn’t definitive. It wasn’t, you’re gonna get cancer or not. But it bumped up your risk if you are positive on the blood test to then make that screening even more effective.

Laura Levaas:

That’s awesome.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

And they had some evidence – loose evidence – that it might even work in never smokers. And I think that’s what will come in the future too. And then what if you identify this high-risk group? I’m getting all excited now – all that higher-risk group? Maybe then say, okay, well, why are they at higher risk? Is that the group we give a vaccine to?

Laura Levaas:

Right. And then how would you identify a non-smoker, high-risk group? Can you?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah, well, so, it’s a work in progress. So, one of the things that they’re starting to do is find some of the mutations which are driving people’s cancer in the blood. Okay? So, the problem is that the sensitivity of the test isn’t very good. So, you can find it when somebody has lots of cancer in their body. But to get the screening, you want to find it when there’s one little ditzel in your lung. So, you have to really turn up the sensitivity.

And I think that’s where the field is kinda going. So, they would know that if they found ALK in your blood, if they made a super sensitive test, that that would be wrong. Shouldn’t be there. And therefore, they would say, you should go get a CT scan. And so, the sensible thing would be, develop a cocktail of tests for every one of the things that drive lung cancer and say, if we find it, that’s bad news. Go get a CT scan.

Laura Levaas:

I like that. A cocktail of tests. Good. Well, hopefully, that will be soon. Two more questions. This is a really great question, actually, from Gail O. Is there a resource for local oncologists to reach out to for information and collaboration about lung cancer? Because as I’m sure you know, some of these smaller centers, maybe those physicians aren’t seeing lung cancer patients. So, they – I don’t wanna say they don’t know what to do, but maybe a patient is not getting the appropriate treatment protocol.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

I mean, that’s a really good question. So, it depends on where you are in the world. So, there are guidelines that NCCN, National Comprehensive Cancer Network – which is a common guideline used in the USA – is updated every few months. And that’s a common thing that a private practitioner could look at. And yet, it’s astonishing how many people sort of still don’t follow that. That’s a guideline. And the trouble with guidelines is, they don’t describe every possible scenario. In terms of how do you –? This may come as a huge surprise to you, but doctors have egos.

Laura Levaas:

No!

Dr. Ross Camidge:

No! So, how do you convince a person who may be a very good general oncologist that they don’t know everything? And that’s really hard. So, it’s not that we don’t necessarily have the resource. But we have to have people feel comfortable, if you like, asking for help. And I think that may be the biggest challenge.

I mean, I’ll give you an example. So, here we are in Colorado. There are probably several hundred medical oncologists in the state, of whom a handful ever send us patients for clinical trials. And you go, well, they must all see lung cancer. Lung cancer’s common. So, why do only some of them send people for clinical trials? Either they’re sending them somewhere else – and that’s okay – or they’re just not asking for help. And that is a huge tragedy if that’s happening.

Laura Levaas:

Yeah. So, is there a resource for local oncologists, like –?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Do you want me to actually answer the question?

Laura Levaas:

If it’s possible. It’s a big question.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

No. I mean, not in a – I mean, there are lots of separate resources. So, all oncologists are subject to CME, continuing medical education. There are videos they can watch. There are updates of all these conferences. But they have to want to do it. Nobody is getting down and forcing them to do it.

Laura Levaas:

Right. And I think that’s where an empowered patient comes in. An empowered patient will seek out the care that they’re looking for.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

Yeah. I mean, I do lots of second opinions. And for many of my patients, they’re around the world and around the country. And sometimes, their oncologist I form a very close relationship with because we both feel like we’re looking after the same person. And you almost feel like you’re kind of a co-parent. And that’s great because they don’t feel threatened by me, and I don’t feel threatened by them, and we can work together. “Well, this has happened. This is what the scan shows. What do you think? And I’ll do this.” And others don’t. But that’s how it can work well.

Laura Levaas:

Okay. Last question. This person’s name is Parentin B. I’ve never heard that name before. It’s very interesting. Are there recommendations about what patients can do themselves, like supplements, diet, exercise, etc., that could be helpful? And I know when I was first diagnosed, that was one of my first questions. Because my physician said, “Well, eat healthy.” And I was like, “Well, what does that mean?”

Dr. Ross Camidge:

What does that mean? Yeah.

Laura Levaas:

So, I think there’s a glut of, should we do Keto? Should we do Paleo? Should we go vegan? Vegetarian?

Dr. Ross Camidge:

I think one of the things is, what this is actually telling us is that when we’re diagnosed, we want to be part of the solution ourselves. We don’t want to be passive and have people do things to us. And I think the physicians who go, “Well, no. Nah,” I mean, they’re missing out on that need to take some aspect of control of our lives.

And so, some of it, you can channel that energy into becoming empowered and educating yourself about it. Not to the point that you’re obsessed about it, but I mean so that you’re, again – occasionally, I get patients who come in, and you go, “So, what treatment are you on?” And they go, “I don’t know.” And you go, “Well, you’re hardly taking control if you wanna change your diet, yet you can’t be bothered to learn the name of your chemotherapy. That’s not empowerment.”

I think diet is something we can all control in our lives. It can also make you – a diagnosis of cancer makes you vulnerable to anyone who wants to sell you any kind of quack theory. I think most people, at least our cancer dietitians here, would say, you bump up the fresh fruit and vegetables. You don’t have to become a juicer. But fresh fruit and vegetables generally make you feel better. They keep your bowels moving more, which sometimes, some of the treatments can interfere with that. You don’t have to feel guilty if you have a candy bar. But if you minimize the amount of highly processed food you have and the amount of sweets, that’s fine. It’s like anything else. You can have cheat dates. Don’t feel bad about it.

But all of that is kind of subjective. There’s people who are gonna tell you, you have to have cottage cheese and flax seed oil or the Gerson diet and have coffee enemas. I prefer my coffee this way, but –

Laura Levaas:

Me too.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

And there are always testimonials about these things, but there’s very little hard evidence that it actually makes a difference. The one exception is exercise. Actually, there’s quite a lot of data that being a healthy weight – so, not overweight, and just being active. It doesn’t mean you have to sign up for a triathlon, but just going for a walk every day or doing something actually makes people feel better, makes them cope with the treatment better. And there’s even some data that actually survival is improved. So, that’s definitely something that people can do.

Laura Levaas:

Well, those are all really good things. And I appreciate these questions. Many of them came from the ALK positive Facebook group that really helped me cope through some of my tough times. And there are some really smart folks in there, way smarter than me. Probably not as smart as you. But they –

Dr. Ross Camidge:

No! Way smarter than me! They’re all like nuclear physicists and things.

Laura Levaas:

I’m really amazed at the amount of specialized information that I’ve been able to find in these support groups. So, kind of winding up. Thank you, Dr. Camidge, for joining us today for – it’s a new program, actually, from the Patient Empowerment Network, but it’s produced by Patient Power. And again, we want to thank Celgene Corporation, Novartis, and Pfizer for their support, even though they don’t have editorial control. We’re kinda driving the bus. And we’re really grateful that you could join us today and answer all of these pressing questions.

Dr. Ross Camidge:

My pleasure.

Laura Levaas:

Thanks. We’ll catch you next time. And everybody, thanks for watching. Please remember the opinions expressed on Patient Power are not necessarily the views of our sponsors, contributors, partners or Patient Power. Our discussions are not a substitute for seeking medical advice or care from your own doctor. That’s how you’ll get care that’s most appropriate for you.

After Cancer, Ambushed By Depression

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At some stage in all our lives there comes a time when feelings of sadness, grief or loneliness gets us down. It is part of being human. And after all, what’s more human than feeling down after such a life-changing and stressful event like cancer? Most of the time, we bounce back; but what happens when the blues stick around and start to interfere with our work, our relationships and our enjoyment of life?

Dana Jennings, whose writings in the New York Times about his treatment for prostate cancer, so eloquently captured the mix of feelings which cancer survivors face after treatment ends, wrote that while he was “buoyed by a kind of illness-induced adrenaline” during treatment, once treatment ended, he found himself “ambushed by depression.”

Jennings’ words will have a familiar ring to many of us who have struggled with that unexpected feeling of depression and loneliness that creeps up on us after treatment is finished. For some survivors, depression kicks in shortly after diagnosis or at some stage during treatment; for others it may ambush them weeks, months or even years after treatment ends.

What Causes Depression?

Depression is a word that means different things to each of us; people use it to describe anything from a low mood to a feeling of hopelessness.  However, there is a vast difference between clinical depression and sadness. Sadness is a part of being human; it comes and goes as a natural reaction to painful circumstances, but it passes with time. Depression goes beyond sadness about a cancer diagnosis or concern about the future.

In its mildest form, depression doesn’t stop you leading your normal life, but it does make things harder to do and seem less worthwhile. At its most severe, the symptoms of clinical depression are serious enough to interfere with work, social life, family life, or physical health.

Incidence of Depression in Cancer Survivors

Research shows that cancer survivors are more likely than their healthy peers to suffer psychological distress, such as anxiety and depression, even a decade after treatment ends. Although estimates of the frequency of depression in cancer patients vary, there is broad agreement that patients who face a disruptive life   event like cancer have an increased risk of depression that can persist for many years.  While most people will understand that dealing with a chronic illness like cancer causes depression, not everyone understands that depression can go on for many months (and even years) after cancer treatment has ended.

The Challenge of Identifying Depression in Cancer Patients

Some research has indicated that depression has been underdiagnosed and undertreated in cancer patients.  This may result from several factors, including patients’ reluctance to report depression, physician uncertainty about how best to manage it, and the belief that depression is a normal part of having cancer.

Several of the characteristics of major depression listed below– like fatigue, cognitive impairment, poor sleep, and change of appetite or weight loss—are hard to distinguish from the common side effects of cancer treatment. This makes it harder to tease apart the psychological burden of cancer, the effects of treatment, and the biochemical effects of the disease.

Are You At Risk of Depression?

Depression can occur through a combination of factors, with some of us being more prone to depression than others.  Factors such as a history of depression, a history of alcohol or substance abuse, and a lack of social support can increase the risk of depression in both the general population and among cancer patients.

Even if a person is not in a high-risk category, a diagnosis of cancer is associated with a higher rate of depression, no matter the stage or outcome of the disease.

Distress over a cancer diagnosis is not the same thing as clinical depression – it is important to recognize the signs and get treatment. The first step is to identify if you are experiencing symptoms of depression.

Try answering the following two questions.

Have you, for more than two weeks (1) felt sad, down or miserable most of the time? (2) Lost interest or pleasure in most of your usual activities?

If you answered ‘YES’ to either of these questions, you may have depression (see the symptom checklist below). If you did not answer ‘YES’ to either of these questions, it is unlikely that you have a depressive illness.

Depression Checklist*

(Tick each of the symptoms that apply to you)

  • Trouble sleeping with early waking, sleeping too much, or not being able to sleep
  • On-going sad or “empty” mood for most of the day
  • Finding it hard to concentrate or make decisions
  • Feeling restless and agitated, irritable or impatient
  • Extreme tiredness and lethargy
  • Feeling emotionally empty or numb
  • Not eating properly; losing or putting on weight
  • Loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities most of the time
  • Crying a lot
  • Losing interest in your sex life
  • Preoccupied with negative thoughts
  • Distancing yourself from others
  • Feeling pessimistic about the future
  • Anger, irritability, and impatience

Add up the number of ticks for your total score: _______

What does your score mean?

  • 4 or less: You are unlikely to be experiencing a depressive illness
  • 5 or more: It is likely that you may be experiencing a depressive illness.

NB This list is not a replacement for medical advice. If you’re concerned that you or someone you know may have symptoms of depression, it’s best to speak to your doctor.

Depression – The Way Forward

It’s common to experience a range of emotions and symptoms after a cancer diagnosis, including feelings of stress, sadness and anger. However, some people experience intense feelings of hopelessness for weeks, months, or even years after diagnosis. If you continue to experience emotional distress from your cancer, it’s very important to know that help is available, and to get the help you need.

The first step on the path to recovery is to accept your depression as a normal reaction to what you have been through –don’t try to fight it, bury it or feel ashamed that it is there.  Think of your depression as just another symptom of cancer. If you were in physical pain, you would seek help, and it’s the same for depression.  There are many people willing to help you but the first step is to let someone know how you are feeling. Finding the courage to talk to just one person, whether that’s a loved one, primary care physician, or specialist nurse will often be the first step towards healing.

The psychological effects of cancer are only beginning to be studied and understood. In time, doctors will not only treat the body to kill the cancer, but will treat the mind which suffers the consequences of the disease long after the body has healed. When you’re depressed it can feel like you are barely existing. By obtaining the correct medical intervention and learning better coping skills, however, you can not only live with depression, but live well.

A Note on Helping a Loved One with Depression

Perhaps you are reading this because you’re concerned about a loved one who might have depression.   You may be wondering how you can help. For people who have never experienced the devastating depths of major clinical depression, it may be difficult to understand what your loved one is going through. Depressed people find it hard to ask for help, so let your friend or family member know that you care, you believe in them and that you’re there for them.

The best thing you can is to listen. Don’t offer preachy platitudes about things never being as bad as you think, or suggesting the person snap out of the depression. Our culture doesn’t encourage people to talk about their emotional pain. We’re taught to suppress our feelings, not to show weakness, to get over things quickly. Most people, when they feel upset, benefit greatly by talking to someone who listens with empathy and without judgment. Most of the time the person who is depressed is not looking for advice, but just knowing that someone cares enough to listen deeply can make all the difference.

*References: American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th ed (DSM-IV). Washington, DC: APA, 1994; and, International classification of diseases and related health problems, 10th revision. Geneva, World Health Organisation, 1992-1994.

Helping Seniors With Long Term Recovery: Tips For Carers To Make The Process Easier

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Every year over 525,000 Americans experiences their first heart attack while around 795,000 people experience strokes. Of that number, 75 percent of them are aged 65 and over. Recovering from medical conditions such as these can be a long road for older people. As we age, so does our bodies and immune system and recovery can take a longer time. The process of healing and returning to optimal health can be a stressful and trying time for both seniors and their caregivers, whether they are patients that are newly diagnosed or living with it for years. By implementing simple changes, you can ensure the process is a smooth and easy one for either yourself or a loved one.

Arrange For Help Sooner Rather Than Later – Both Personal And Infrastructural

The days immediately after medical events such as strokes, cardiac episodes, and even falls can find older Americans feeling frail and with limited movement. Small adjustments to both their living environment and making help available can help them in those initial times. Standard additions such as the placement of bath rails and reorganization of items to a more accessible level can help them maintain some level of independence and prevent further harm. Slips and falls are one of the most commonly reported incidents amongst seniors in America. Around1 in 4 older Americans experience falls each year and in those times where they are in long term recovery, these chances increase sizably.

In addition to making your home accessible, be sure to plan with other family members or carers a timetable to be present and help, particularly in the early days after being released from the hospital or care facilities. This is also the point where you will need to consider whether you can provide the level of long term care that person may need and do so comfortably at home.

Weigh Their Rehabilitation Options- Care Facilities Vs Recovering At Home

Speaking of providing long term care, considering the best rehabilitation option is one of the most important decisions in the recovery process of an older loved one. While most of us prefer to age at home, in a place surrounded by family and comfort there are cases where care facilities may prove to be better medically and financially. Some stroke patients can suffer long term loss of their motor skills and require round the clock care and physical rehabilitation. This can prove to be along, tough road and requires much commitment from both the caregivers and the patient. One of the most cited reasons for families not choosing assisted living is its costs. Take the time to inquire whether their state health insurance covers senior facilities and the extent of its coverage. Only then can you align your budgetary reach and make a decision on what you can afford.

Don’t Forget Their Mental Health

Our physical and mental health are strongly linked; a decline in one can impact the other. In long term recovery for seniors, this is particularly prevalent. Approximately 15 percent of adults 60 and older deal with mental illness including clinical depression. According to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention, 1-5 percent of the senior population are affected by depression. This can be further broken down into 13.5 percent of those that require home healthcare and 11.5 percent of those in hospitals. In addition, certain illnesses can trigger or worsen these symptoms including dementia, strokes and multiple sclerosis.

For those recovering, this can stem from long hospital stays or even PTSD from the actual event such as a stroke or fall. In long term recovery, there can also be a loss of motivation and sometimes, poor mental health can be influenced by a drastic change in their lifestyle such as regularly being active outdoors. It is important that we pay attention to both mental and physical recovery as they interrelate with each other. Think of ways to keep your older loved ones recovering (or in some cases, yourself) motivated. Account for small progress and celebrate them as targets. In addition, speaking to a professional or even confiding in a family member can be beneficial to them getting their thoughts out. While the way life may look may have changed, its new routine does not necessarily have to be viewed through a bad light. Establishing hobbies and a strong support network for senior citizens can prove invaluable during this time.

Words Matter: Why Cancer Isn’t a Game of Winners or Losers

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Are you “battling” cancer? Do you know someone who has “lost their fight” with the disease and died?

It seems whenever we hear a story about someone with cancer, war metaphors are never far behind.  Cancer battles must invariably be bravely fought, won, or lost.  Using this metaphor implies that if a patient fights hard enough and/or long enough, he or she will be able to “win the war.” The trouble with using this particular kind of metaphor to describe cancer is it puts the burden of healing on patients by turning them into winners and losers.  As breast cancer blogger, Nancy Stordahl, writes in What Does Beating Cancer Mean Anyway? ”Struggling to live up to some gold standard of what beating cancer means, adds to the already exhausting burden. We need to stop patronizing and judging cancer patients based on misguided battle talk analogies. Cancer isn’t an opponent in some war game you can stomp out by mindset or determination.”

Besides, the battle metaphor takes no account of the sheer randomness of the disease. Using a statistical model that measures the proportion of cancer risk, across many tissue types, scientists from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center published a study in 2015 which concluded that two-thirds of the variation in adult cancer risk across tissues can be explained primarily by “bad luck.” In other words, a major contributing factor to cancer is in fact beyond anyone’s control. For the most part, we don’t know why one person is alive 10 years after the diagnosis of advanced cancer, whereas another dies within months.

By this reasoning, no amount of fighting or battling cancer can affect its outcome.  Commenting on the study, the researchers said, “Many people have found relief in this research. Cancer has a long history of stigmatization. Patients and family members frequently blame themselves, believing there was something they could have done to prevent their or their family member’s cancer. We have heard from many of these families and are pleased that our analysis could bring comfort and even lift the burden of guilt in those who have suffered the physical and emotional consequences of cancer.”

Cancer is a disease; not a military campaign

Cancer is a disease; not a military campaign. In the words of patient and caregiver Jana Buhlman, “it’s a disease that people manage.”  Cancer is a complex disease. Yet there still exists a prevailing attitude to cancer which treats survival as though it were somehow an act of will.  You’ve got to be strong, remain positive and be courageous to overcome the disease.  Clodagh Loughrey, who was diagnosed with breast cancer nine years ago, explains, “I was absolutely petrified at the time, the opposite of strong or courageous, and to be also made to feel guilty for being scared by well-meaning exhortations to be ‘be positive’….people mean well and I didn’t want to sound ungrateful for the support as it is far worse (and easier for them) to avoid people with cancer, and some people did.”

What other diseases or condition do we say this about? “Do we fight a heart attack or a stroke? Are we told in any other illness to “keep fighting”? asks Jo Taylor, Founder of After Breast Cancer Diagnosis.   The fact is cancer doesn’t care how courageous or positive you are. Patients are in remission because treatment eliminated every cancer cell from their bodies, not because the patient fought courageously or was endlessly positive.  As a patient who is currently NED (i.e. no evidence of disease) I didn’t fight any harder than anyone else with this disease. I haven’t “beaten” cancer. I don’t know for sure that cancer will not come back again.

Cancer isn’t a game of winners and losers

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read about patients who are in remission from cancer, having “won their fight” against the disease. Journalists in particular seem incapable of writing about a person who has died from cancer without resorting to the “lost fight” cliché.  Julia Barnickle, who is living with metastatic breast cancer, points out that while she doesn’t like the term personally, “I have no problem with cancer patients using fighting talk. However, I do object to the media using it, especially in the situation where someone is said to have “lost their battle with cancer.” It’s simply a hackneyed way of grabbing attention.”

Does this imply that patients in remission have somehow done more than those who aren’t in remission?  Or that cancer progression or death from cancer is somehow an indication of failure – of not having had the ability to fight and defeat the enemy?  “It seems,” in the words of breast cancer blogger Maureen Kenny, “if you’ve got cancer you’re almost always seen as battling or fighting it, more often than not bravely. We never hear of anyone dying of the disease after a lacklustre, take or it or leave it, weak-willed tussle.”

Cancer shouldn’t be reduced in this way to a game of winners and losers.  Commenting at the time of the death of film critic Roger Ebert, Michael Wosnick, wrote: “The use of the word, “lose” is like a zero-sum game to me: if someone or something loses then that means that someone or something else wins. You can’t have a loser if you don’t have a winner. We should not so easily give cancer that kind of power over us.”

If someone has lifelong hypertension and dies from a heart attack, do we say in the obituary that they lost their battle with high blood pressure? Then why do so many deaths from cancer get reported this way? While it’s not quite “blaming the victim”, it does have an implicit element of somehow placing the ultimate responsibility for having died in the hands of the deceased.

When words blame

Oncologist, Dr Don Dizon, tells a story about taking care of a young patient with ovarian cancer during his first year as an attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The patient had just relapsed from first-line treatment and in his discussion with her about the next steps, Dr. Dizon explains that, “despite the failure of first-line treatment, there are many more options for you.”

The doctor was stunned by the patient’s tearful reaction to his words: “You make it sound like this was my fault, like I did something wrong!” she said. “I’m sorry I failed chemotherapy, if that’s what you think, and I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

It’s a lesson Dr. Dizon has never forgotten, as he describes in his own words: “It was never my intention to place ‘blame’ on something so devastating as a cancer recurrence, and I certainly did not mean to imply that she had failed. These many years later, I still consider this encounter a watershed moment in my career as an oncologist.”

The “battle with cancer” may be “only a metaphor” but it stands for a quite destructive attitude that, to the extent it influences doctors as well, distorts the treatment of cancer too.  In a JAMA Oncology article, the authors discuss how “the continuous urge to win the battle extends to oncologists, who actively treat patients for too long. The fact is that 8% of patients receive chemotherapy within 2 weeks of dying of cancer, and 62% within 2 months. Late chemotherapy is associated with decreased use of hospice, greater use of emergency interventions (including resuscitation), and increased risk of dying in an intensive care unit vs at home. This all clearly reflects our society’s need to battle until the end.”

Embracing a fighting spirit can work for some patients

This isn’t to deny that some cancer patients embrace a fighting spirit as a way that helps them feel more in control.  Cancer survivor, nurse and educator, Beth Thompson describes how “identifying as a shorn ‘warrior’ psyched me up for and pushed me through treatment.”  Sara Turle, a 9-year survivor of cancer, also found resonance in the metaphor. “For me I was never battling cancer: it’s a disease, but I was definitely battling how I managed diagnosis and particularly getting through the side effects of treatments,” she explains. “It helped me to look at each stage and at times each day and even hour, at worst points, with a view of getting through, surviving and celebrating with just a simple acknowledgement. It truly helped me feeling that achievement and it helped with knowing that I was going to have to face it again.”

Professor Elena Semino and her colleagues have been studying the use of metaphors in the way we talk about cancer since 2012. As part of their research they have analysed 1.5 million words taken from interviews and online forum discussions involving cancer patients, family carers and health professionals. The team found that the type of metaphors people chose to use when describing their cancer reflected and affected how they viewed and experienced their illness. “For some patients, some of the time, the idea of being engaged in a fight is motivating,” explained Sermino. “Some people say with pride that “I’m such a fighter”, and they find a sense of meaning and purpose and identity in that. The study showed that we are all different, and different metaphors work for different people, and at different times.”

I agree. I’m not criticizing individuals who draw strength from calling themselves fighters.  Everyone is entitled to use whatever language they want to describe their own experiences. As Sara says, “My belief is that the right language is what is right for the individual person and I would hate to think that people who do find this language helps, feel that they can’t openly use for fear of what others may think. Whatever language gets you through is the right language for me. I am very mindful of when speaking to people now to be sensitive to the language they are happy with and these discussions of differing views have helped me with this.”  Beth agrees and asks, “Can we educate while still leaving room for what works for the individual experience of cancer?”

Wrapping Up

If you believe, as many patients do, that the words we use to describe cancer matter, how then should we begin to conceptualize it? Stephanie Sliekers asks a similar question in this HuffPost article, “If cancer really is the ‘enemy’, what’s the best way to beat it?” Her answer? “By studying and understanding it as it is, a disease borne out of human blood, tissues and genes, a disease that lives within us whether it is treatable or fatal.”

Perhaps, rather than speaking of cancer in militaristic terms, it’s better to communicate that we are “living with cancer” for as long and as well as we can. And when a person dies, let’s not say he/she has lost anything, but rather that person has died after living with cancer for a period of time.

Words matter a great deal in life, death, and everything that comes in-between. To quote Dr Dizon “Words are powerful and despite our best intentions, can hurt—this is true in life, and it is true in oncology.”