Emily Josh Health Reporter, Dailymail.Com
Updated on July 21, 2024 at 12:38, July 21, 2024 at 12:38
A Kentucky woman was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and given just six months to live, even though she had never smoked and was physically active.
Leah Phillips was just 43 when she developed a dry, persistent cough in September 2019. Two weeks later, doctors determined it was remnants of a common virus she had contracted.
Taking corticosteroids for a few days subsided the cough, but after a few weeks it returned, along with shortness of breath. A long-distance runner, Phillips now struggles to keep up with jogging groups and feels a “heaviness” in her chest.
She returned to her doctor for further tests, and a scan showed a clot in her right lung – which occurs when air in the airways is replaced by liquid, blood or other substances – which can be a sign of several health complications, and the mother-of-three was diagnosed with pneumonia.
She was prescribed antibiotics, but halfway through the treatment she began coughing up blood. Doctors gave her stronger antibiotics and then hospitalized her for four days for further tests and observation.
Despite the fact that Phillips had lost weight, was coughing, could barely climb stairs, and had pain in her right shoulder and right rib cage, her medical team insisted that she simply had lingering pneumonia.
“It looked horrible,” Phillips, now 47, told The Patient Story.
“I stood in the exam room, crying to the receptionists, saying: ‘There’s something seriously wrong with me. I need someone to see me. I need someone to listen to me.'”
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“I said, ‘I’m not leaving until someone notices me.’
A few months later, in December 2019, a CT scan and bone biopsy revealed that he had stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer.
She said: “My mother, my husband and I were all surprised because none of us knew you could get lung cancer without smoking.”
“The oncologist told me I only had six to 12 months to live and that I needed to get my affairs in order. I was 43 and had a small child.”
“I remember sitting there and tears welling up. I thought, ‘This can’t be happening. Metastatic cancer is what kills you, and here I am alive.'”
According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the United States, accounting for one in five cancer deaths, and more than half of the cases are diagnosed after the disease has spread to other organs.
In Phillips’ case, the cancer had spread to her spine and pelvis.
Only one in four people with lung cancer will survive after five years.
Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type, accounting for 9 out of 10 lung cancer diagnoses. Non-small cell lung cancer usually grows more slowly than small cell lung cancer and does not cause symptoms until it is advanced.
Phillips is part of a growing number of early-onset cancer patients being diagnosed before the age of 50.
One in 10 lung cancer diagnoses in the United States is in people under the age of 55, but experts warn that rates of early detection have increased over the past two decades.
Although smoking remains the leading cause of lung cancer, the proportion of young patients who have never smoked is increasing.
Genetic testing revealed that Phillips has a mutation in the EGFR gene, which is most commonly found in female lung cancer patients who never smoke.
Of the 234,000 patients diagnosed with lung cancer each year, approximately 10-15% have EGFR mutations.
She also wrote in Project Environment that doctors believe radon exposure increased her risk of developing cancer.
Radon, a known carcinogen, is an invisible, odorless gas produced by the radioactive decay of uranium in rocks, soil and water. The World Health Organization estimates that 3 to 14 percent of lung cancers are due to radon.
Radon is a common chemical in Kentucky, so she believes living there has increased her exposure to it.
“The reality is that cancer is more common in people with advanced cancer than in those with advanced cancer,” Dr. Laura Mesquita, a Spanish medical oncologist, said at an oncology conference earlier this summer. “Radon is the leading cause of cancer in non-smokers. Radon is also a risk factor for younger people.”
This is due to exposure to radon from birth, which can get into homes through contaminated soil, she said, and a 2019 report in Nature found that radon exposure in homes is increasing because modern buildings are becoming more airtight, trapping the chemical.
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Phillips immediately began taking osimertinib, an oral chemotherapy drug used specifically to treat non-small cell lung cancer in patients with the genetic mutation.
After a year of treatment, the main tumor in his right lung had shrunk by 70 percent and the bone lesions had also subsided.
In November 2020, she began eight intensive radiation treatments to attack the remaining cancer.
The cancer has been stable since then, but chemotherapy drugs are estimated to only keep the cancer in check for two to three years, after which it can grow again and spread.
Phillips’ condition has been stabilized by medication for four and a half years, but doctors believe the drugs are no longer effective, and even if they continue to work, they are unlikely to shrink the tumor any further.
“It’s not a question of if I’ll progress, but when,” she said. “I feel like I’m on borrowed time. There are no formal next steps.”
“I will never be in remission. I will never be cured.”
Although Phillips’s outlook is bleak, she now encourages other young people to advocate for themselves with doctors and avoid being turned down.
She said: “What if I never got an education? What if I never stood up for myself? What if I never had the financial means or the insurance to keep coming back? My heart breaks for those people.”
“Being ignored is not my style. I’m not a confrontational person, but when I’m passionate about something, I stand by my beliefs. And I knew I deserved better care than the care I was getting.”
“You have to be your own advocate, and if you feel like you can’t do that yourself, you need to find someone who can.”