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My mother was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Never smoked, no alcohol. For 3 months doctors were diagnosing her coughing as probably covid related

My mother was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Never smoked, no alcohol. For 3 months doctors were diagnosing her coughing as probably covid related, even when tests came negative. Probably a lot more people got late cancer diagnosis due to Covid. And lung cancer deaths are at 150K vs 577K for Covid. As article says, genetic mutations are much more common among non-smokers. Exon 19 deletion egfr mutation was detected, so she started on Osimertinib that works very well. Sadly Osimertinib will work for a year or two, and then cancer mutates and gains resistance.

izend 5y ago
What about Radon exposure? Big problem in Canada in certain cities: "Over 16% of lung cancer deaths are attributed to radon exposure in Canada. It is estimated that more than 21,000 Canadians will die from lung cancer this year, and more than 3,000 of those deaths are because of exposure to radon indoors."
- kozikow 5y ago
  No radon risk in north-eastern Poland according to some Googling. Only risk factors was pneumonia many years ago and maybe a wood fireplace. Wood fireplace seemed properly insulated, chimney was regurarly inspected and no smoke escaped, but who knows.
ufo 5y ago
Just to add a clarification for the rest of HN, since this is a common source of confusion... Every cancer has gene mutations. Typically these mutations are only present in the cancer cells and are not there from birth. They don't indicate a hereditary predisposition to getting cancer. Really sorry to hear what your family is going through. This kind of stuff is never easy to deal with.
- kozikow 5y ago
  For some reason, non-smoking lung cancer means 2-3x higher chance of finding a mutation that could be used for targeted therapy - e.g. EGFR, ALK, ROS1 and others. It doesn't mean that this mutation was present at birth, but at some point some cells mutated and became cancer cells.

izend 5y ago

What about Radon exposure? Big problem in Canada in certain cities: "Over 16% of lung cancer deaths are attributed to radon exposure in Canada. It is estimated that more than 21,000 Canadians will die from lung cancer this year, and more than 3,000 of those deaths are because of exposure to radon indoors."

kozikow 5y ago
No radon risk in north-eastern Poland according to some Googling. Only risk factors was pneumonia many years ago and maybe a wood fireplace. Wood fireplace seemed properly insulated, chimney was regurarly inspected and no smoke escaped, but who knows.

ufo 5y ago

Just to add a clarification for the rest of HN, since this is a common source of confusion... Every cancer has gene mutations. Typically these mutations are only present in the cancer cells and are not there from birth. They don't indicate a hereditary predisposition to getting cancer. Really sorry to hear what your family is going through. This kind of stuff is never easy to deal with.

kozikow 5y ago
For some reason, non-smoking lung cancer means 2-3x higher chance of finding a mutation that could be used for targeted therapy - e.g. EGFR, ALK, ROS1 and others. It doesn't mean that this mutation was present at birth, but at some point some cells mutated and became cancer cells.