"Treating lung cancer at earlier stages will become a game changer"

This year's theme for World Lung Cancer Day (August 1st) is "United for Lung Cancer Awareness", which links to the work that IDERHA is doing to improve the life of lung cancer patients. IDERHA aims to achieve this by addressing the obstacles in accessing, integrating and analysing health data to maximize their value for patient care and medical research. 

A member of IDERHA is Prof. Torsten Blum, a Berlin-based pulmonologist and thoracic oncologist at MSB (Medical School Berlin) and at Helios Klinikum Emil von Behring, one of Germany’s largest hospitals in respiratory medicine, covering the entire lung cancer care pathway on campus and conducting clinical and translational research in this field for decades.

Prof. Blum shared his thoughts with IDERHA researcher Rebecca Graebig-Rancourt in this Q&A on World Lung Cancer Day.

What is a common misconception people have about lung cancer? 

"There are several misconceptions around who gets lung cancer. The most common being that only older people get lung cancer. Or males, or only smokers. However, despite more than half of lung cancer cases being diagnosed in people over 65 years old, we are now seeing more and more people around or under 50 years old developing cancer, as well as a rise in lung cancer cases in women. Also, while smoking is a huge risk factor for lung cancer, the proportion of non-smoking related lung cancers is constantly increasing, currently between 15-20% of all lung cancers in Europe."

What do you want people to know about lung cancer screening?

"The ability of detecting and treating lung cancer at earlier stages will become a game changer for a positive outcome and prognosis. Lung cancer screening with a low-dose CT scan in high-risk populations (at this stage defined only by age, and current and former heavy smoking status, ed.) bears the potential to significantly reduce their lung cancer-related mortality rates. If low-dose CT-based lung cancer screening is performed in well-structured and controlled programs, it will be effective and safe for eligible participants as well as cost-effective for healthcare systems."

How do you see IDERHA benefiting clinicians? 

"An exciting development that we are hopeful coming out of the multi-disciplinary team driving IDERHA’s projects, is a greater understanding of what the predictive risk factors known at the time of diagnosis and during a risk factor period are for the development of lung cancer within the next 5 years. Can we discover new predictive factors of who will get lung cancer?"

How could secondary use of health data aid in lung cancer research?

"Valuable information regarding environmental and regional health factors such as air-quality and pollution that impacts respiratory health in a specific population or area could be identified when reevaluating the available 'secondary-use health data' in lung cancer cases across populations. This will aid policy-makers and the public in providing health knowledge."