Doctors encourage screenings during Lung Cancer Awareness Month

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, according to the CDC.

November is Lung Cancer Awareness month, and doctors are urging smokers, former smokers and those with symptoms to get screened.

“Screening saves lives,” director of clinical service lines for oncology and pulmonology at Ascension Via Christi Keisha Humphries said. “If you meet the criteria, get screened, your insurance will pay for it, and our navigators will walk you through it.”

Humphries says only 5% of the eligible population gets screened, but the way to beat the cancer is to catch it early.

“There’s been so much work done on mammography and getting people in for their mammograms,” Humphries said. “People just don’t see that as much as they do lung cancer. So, it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind, and a lot of people, there are still physicians that will say, oh, you don’t really need that. You do, you do need that. You need that for that stage one cancer that we might find.”

Ascension Via Christi recently became a part of a new lung cancer program that will ultimately help diagnose and treat lung cancer earlier. They have new software that flags anything that could be lung cancer that can be used when someone is in the ER for example. Most patients at the lung nodule clinic come from incidental findings rather than screenings. They also have a new tool that can detect small nodules as little as 3-5mm. There are also Nurse Navigators at the lung nodule clinic that help guide patients through the cancer journey. Patients are also able to see three doctors at once at the lung nodule clinic instead of making multiple appointments with different people.

“We can actually go in and do that biopsy and find that cancer small, which means stage one lung cancer,” Humphries said. “That’s fabulous because, unfortunately, we actually find more stage four lung cancers. Stage four, we don’t have a cure for that. But stage one, typically, we treat those patients, and they’re good.”

In the last year at the lung nodule clinic, they have seen 200 patients, and 58 of them were diagnosed with lung cancer. Humphries says those are people who probably wouldn’t have found it as early without the new technology. Kevin Smith is one of those people.

“I never had to deal with the radiation, chemo treatments,” Smith said. “If they had not found it when they did, there’s no telling. I may have lost the whole lung.”

Smith used to smoke, and his doctor recommended a screening. Doctors discovered his cancer and removed it within one month because they found it at such an early stage.

“We found it early due to the screening,” Smith said. “We can remove it. The surgeon kind of told me, he says, we’re going to use robot, go in there and snip out part of your lung, and you’ll be in and out.”

Smith didn’t have any symptoms of lung cancer and encourages people to get screened.

“Get tested,” Smith said. “If the doctors don’t suggest it, suggest it to the doctors. Let them know. Is there any way we can check to see if I have cancer? If you’re a former smoker, which I aa, if you’re in the upper age of 50s, you’ve probably been around all kinds of cancers, chemicals. Lord knows I have. Get tested.”