Ralitza Martin: It’s been so deeply ingrained that lung cancer is purely a smoker’s malady

Ralitza Martin, Interventional Pulmonologist at Piedmont Healthcare, shared on LinkedIn:

“‘When I read the news this morning that Susan Wojcicki died from lung cancer at age 56 I turned to Google to find more information. The moment I started typing her name the suggestion was ‘Susan Wojcicki smoker’ – indicating that people overwhelmingly tried to find out if her lung cancer was related to her having smoked.

It’s been so deeply ingrained that this is purely a smoker’s malady. Every time I do a biopsy, especially on a young person, and rapid on site comes with ‘positive’, someone in the room inevitably asks- but how? They didn’t smoke!

Even medical professionals (outside of Thoracic oncology specialists) are surprised to learn that up to 20% of lung cancer occur in people who have minimal or zero smoking history.

In other words: You have lungs? You can develop lung cancer.

So much more to learn in that space. While we have a screening test for people at risk (current and former smokers) we are struggling to screen/ test people who don’t match those criteria but are still at a higher risk- family history, radon and environmental exposures. And while I’ve seen it affect people across all ages it’s overwhelmingly young people (<65).

I hope in my professional lifetime we’ll find more answers.”

To read more about Susan Wojcicki and her legacy, click here.
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Source: Ralitza Martin/LinkedIn