{"id":571,"date":"2019-01-24T15:44:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T15:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/news\/young-non-smokers-are-increasingly-at-risk-of-lung-cancer\/"},"modified":"2020-02-21T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T09:29:09","slug":"young-non-smokers-are-increasingly-at-risk-of-lung-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/oncology\/young-non-smokers-are-increasingly-at-risk-of-lung-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Young, non smokers are increasingly at risk of lung cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-1087\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211733\/P.5-Dr-Brian-Bird.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211733\/P.5-Dr-Brian-Bird.jpg 200w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211733\/P.5-Dr-Brian-Bird-125x125.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\"><strong>Dr Brian Bird<\/strong><br \/><\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Consultant Medical Oncologist, Bon Secours, Cork<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>With lung cancer becoming increasingly and worryingly prominent in non-smokers, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Brian Bird says, better screening and use of our own immune system are vital areas of innovation for the future.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Risk factors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The common cause of lung cancer is supposedly unambiguous. The big risk factors associated include smoking and asbestos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Dr Brian Bird, Consultant Medical Oncologist at Bon Secours in Cork, says there\u2019s a worrying trend rearing its head among the patients coming through his doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more and more male and female non smokers, young people, coming in with lung cancer. The cause is currently misunderstood.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Affecting non-smokers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>These non-smokers or light smokers are also more likely to have a \u2018druggable mutation\u2019. Specific treatments target tumour mutations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s often a switch that gets jammed on in a cell, commanding it to divide and grow. If you can turn that switch off, it can enable people to live with the disease for years with less of an effect on quality of life,\u201d Bird says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As with many cancers, finding the disease early can lead to more effective early treatment. Screening for lung cancer in those most at risk could have an enormous impact on the death rate caused by the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith those who\u2019ve smoked heavily for 20 or 30 years, even if they\u2019ve stopped smoking, providing annual chest CT scans can reduce lung cancer mortality by 20%,\u201d Bird says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This will in fact enable more oncologists to stop cancers spreading and becoming less manageable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCatching it early helps us establish whether we can simply cut it out or \u2013 if that\u2019s not an option \u2013 use radiotherapy to essentially \u2018cook\u2019 the tumour, which is almost as effective as surgery itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Screening and treatments<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/oncology\/the-priority-areas-for-cancer-research\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Better screening and treatments<\/a> are seeing lung cancer patients\u2019 quality of life improve, despite there being room for further innovation in both areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Screening through blood tests would mean less exposure to radition for patients. But this is something that\u2019s still a way off being available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, much focus is on alerting and enabling patients\u2019 immune systems to fight their lung cancer. It is an area of constant development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our body\u2019s immune system constantly receives messages to \u2018stand down\u2019 where it\u2019s not needed. Cancer can manipulate these \u2018brakes\u2019 put on the immune system, meaning it can divide and spread unchecked throughout the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHaving a better understanding of how lung cancer evades the immune system. We\u2019ll be able to \u2018take the brakes off\u2019 the immune system and allow it to fight the cancer itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Between 20 \u2013 40% of patients benefit from immunotherapy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With lung cancer becoming increasingly and worryingly prominent in non-smokers, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Brian Bird, says better screening and use of our own immune system are vital areas of innovation for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2856],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oncology"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/02\/07211637\/health-skin-dermatology-product-reaction-eyes-cosy-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/02\/07211637\/health-skin-dermatology-product-reaction-eyes-cosy-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Health Awareness","author_link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/author\/jennyhyndman\/"},"vicky_index_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4332,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571\/revisions\/4332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}