Despite toll, lung-cancer research funding lags

By The Columbus Dispatch  • 
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Lung-cancer patient Keith Carter, left, makes a weekly trek from Gallia County to meet with specialists such as Dr. Gregory Otterson of the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital.

Keith Carter, a 59-year-old farmer and retired school administrator, doesn't know for sure what caused his lung cancer, but he knows what didn't: cigarettes.

Carter, who lives in Gallia County in southeastern Ohio, is one of the 10 percent to 15 percent of lung-cancer patients with no history of smoking. He found out in 2005 that he has an incurable form of the disease and has been in treatment since.

Like many doctors, researchers and other patients - smokers and not - Carter wishes the government and others devoted more money and resources to seeking better treatments and figuring out how to diagnosis the disease earlier, when it's more treatable.

Carter said he knows that when people hear "lung cancer," they often think the person invited the disease. He said he wonders if that contributes to less attention devoted to the matter.

Lung cancer kills more people than any other type of cancer. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 222,520 cases will be diagnosed in the United States this year, and 157,300 people will die of the disease.

Almost four times as many people will die this year of lung cancer than of breast cancer, but government funding for breast-cancer research is more than double what is devoted to lung cancer.


"Lung cancer is every bit as important," said Gretchen Starner, a 71-year-old lung-cancer patient from Reynoldsburg who quit smoking almost three decades ago.

"I never felt blame, but they'd say, 'Have you smoked?'" said the retired high-school English teacher.

Starner continues to go through treatment four years after the diagnosis and is feeling good, she said.

About one in five women and one in 10 men who have lung cancer weren't smokers, said Dr. Gregory Otterson, a co-director of the thoracic oncology program at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital.

Many others quit the habit but develop the disease years later.

Among those who didn't smoke, the second-leading cause is secondhand smoke, Otterson said. Radon, asbestos and some other environmental contaminants can contribute as well.

In both groups, a diagnosis often isn't made until the disease is in its later stages. The lack of a good way to screen for lung cancer remains a concern, said Dr. Joe Hofmeister of Columbus Oncology.

Chest X-rays are problematic because they reveal so many nodules that aren't cancer.

"Is there a kind of frustration? For sure. There's a lack of funding and media (coverage), no screening and it's a highly preventable disease," Hofmeister said.

On the positive side, treatments have advanced somewhat and many patients are surviving longer with a better quality of life, he said.

The good news for patients who are nonsmokers is that some newer drugs work especially well in that group because those patients are more likely to have certain genetic mutations that drive their cancer, Otterson said.

"I still have frustration, though. There's a lot that's unknown, and still about 85 percent of patients are smokers, and we don't know as much about them and we don't have as many good new drugs for them, and we need to do more," he said.

"Smoking drives me crazy, but that doesn't mean that the person in front of me deserves less of my care because he's addicted to a product that, to some extent, the government really advocated for."