Lung Cancer

June is Men’s Health Month, a time when we focus on increasing awareness of preventable health problems to encourage men to take more active roles in preventing disease and detecting and treating problems early.

Take it from George Grace: if you’ve smoked your entire life, you listen closely to news about innovative cancer treatments. Grace listened, even before a spot on his lung led to a diagnosis of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

On March 10, 2013, it was all over. “The next morning when I got up, my mouth tasted like a dumpster. I didn’t want to know anything about nicotine for the rest of my life, honest to God.”

Roswell Park made national headlines last April in securing an agreement to bring Cuba’s encouraging lung cancer vaccine, CIMAvax, to the United States for clinical testing. Nearly one year later, Cuba is back in the news and CIMAvax is receiving renewed attention. One of the most frequently asked questions about this vaccine is, “When will it be available for lung cancer patients in the U.S.?”

After completing his fellowship in 2007, Sai Yendamuri, MD, sought a position allowing him to provide care for lung cancer patients while freely collaborating with fellow physicians and oncologists. The multidisciplinary environment at Roswell Park turned out to be exactly what he was looking for.

Sabrina Miller, BA, Clinical Liaison, shares six common questions and answers about Roswell Park’s Lung Cancer Screening Program that you, and anyone in your life who may be at high risk for lung cancer, need to know.
Roswell Park’s Lung Cancer Screening Program for people at high risk for developing lung cancer includes a focused medical history, physical exam, and helical Low Dose CT (LDCT) chest scan. The LDCT is the only screening test proven to reduce lung cancer deaths.

Sharon McCann never smoked. Neither did her parents or her husband. She did not have any of the risk factors for lung cancer. “It just happened,” she says.

Amid a historic normalizing of relations between the United States and Cuba, a potentially game-changing step was recently taken in the field of lung cancer research.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it, so it’s really about my life today and how cancer makes a difference in a person’s life,” said Thomasina Holmes, a thriving lung cancer survivor who credits Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center for saving her life. 

On November 10, 2014 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed decision to begin covering the cost of a promising type of lung cancer screening, low-dose CT scans, for patients at high risk of the disease.

When diagnosing or treating cancer, a less-invasive procedure often leads to better outcomes and fewer risks.