Doctor discusses Pope Leo lung cancer diagnosis

About 10 minutes left in the hour, and I did want to talk a little bit about Pope Leo. You'll remember he had surgery involving lung cancer earlier this week. There is some good news. He spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin to denounce recent attacks that have gone on in the war in Ukraine. And the Vatican saying that the Pope expressed his concern about the humanitarian crisis going on there. But again, some good news as far as his recovery goes. But what does all of this look like and what symptoms do we need to watch out for? I want to bring in Dr. Thomas Watson with Corwell Health, who's joining me now live via Zoom. Dr. Watson, appreciate you taking the time this afternoon. Or the bigger question might be... And so I want to start with the fact that this was reported as the most common type of lung cancer. And we're hearing reports throughout all of this that the fact that it was caught early is a good sign. Talk a little bit more about this and what the screening process looks like. Sure, thank you. Yeah. So he has a type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma, which is a type of non-small cell lung carcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer. And that's of note because adenocarcinoma is the type of lung cancer that non-smokers typically get. And by all accounts, the Pope has never been a smoker. The cure rates are highly dependent on the stage of the disease. For cancers that are very small and haven't spread to lymph nodes, the cure rates are excellent. for those that are a little bigger there that have already spread to lymph nodes the cure rates get progressively worse we don't yet have the report back on his final pathology assessment so we don't know the stage of his cancer but i think all indications are that we have reason to be optimistic that's an early stage tumor and talk about the the fact that it is caused in non-smokers I wonder what else causes that, because lung cancer is so linked to smoking. Yeah, that's an excellent point. And as you said, most cases of lung cancer are in smokers, but non-smokers' lung cancer is on the rise, and we don't know why that is, if it's genetic, if it's from other things, such as exposure to secondhand smoke is a possibility, radon gas, other environmental factors, all these things can potentially cause lung cancer. The problem is we never know in a given individual what the cause was. We can only look at large populations of people to make those determinations. And so for us watching out there, as far as watching for signs of lung cancer, watching for symptoms, what kind of symptoms should we be watching for and how does that screening process work? So first of all, lung cancer in an early stage won't cause symptoms. That's why there's lung cancer screening for people at high risk for developing lung cancer. So lung cancer screening is done with low-dose CAT scans, and that's been standard of care now for about 15 years. But only high-risk populations are recommended for screening. It's people of a certain age, 50 to 80, who've smoked at least a pack a day for 20 years, and our current smokers who have quit in the last 15 years or so. So people who don't smoke, it's not recommended that they undergo screening. So for people like the Pope who've never been a smoker, it sounds like he was fortunate to have picked this up early. Absolutely, and hoping for the best recovery for him. As far as it being caught this early, obviously hard to speak to someone that you haven't treated personally doctor but what is generally the prognosis in these cases for surgically resected a lung cancer it's generally very good because we only operate on people with cancers that are confined to that chest cavity so it tends to be the earlier stages of disease the fact that he didn't get any pre-operative chemotherapy or other forms of therapy would imply that this was an early stage disease So in those situations, the prognosis is generally very, very good. And oftentimes, no additional treatment is needed. When there has been spread to lymph nodes or when there are larger tumors, postoperative treatment consisting often of chemotherapy with immunotherapy is fairly common. And again, for the Pope, we don't yet know what his final pathology report shows. And so for people watching this interview wondering what their risk factors might be, what should the takeaway be for them? Right. So again, if you're a smoker of the age that I mentioned and have smoked 20-pack years or more, I encourage you to get yearly surveillance low-dose CAT scan screening. For others, it's just a question of being vigilant about symptoms such as cough, coughing up blood, shortness of breath. Those are things that would prompt a doctor visit and a subsequent evaluation. Dr. Thomas Watson with Corwell Health, we appreciate your expertise on this story. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much.