UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology January 1, 2022 - Flipbook - Page 23
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
can only know this after the scientific results
are available.
This might be because the post-operative
healing process leads to a lot of inflammation,
Dr. Moghanaki says.
Doctors started to see their patients with lung
cancer living longer, he says, which has brought
much-needed optimism to the entire cancer
community. ☐
“Meanwhile, there is evidence that radiation
therapy down-regulates inflammation that
can delay or prevent metastatic tumors from
growing. Although, we need more scientific
data to know in which patients that is the case,”
he says.
Changing the future of lung cancer
With increased awareness of how stigma
around lung cancer impacts patients’ lives
and promising research and treatment
developments, Dr. Moghanaki is optimistic
about a future in which lung cancer is caught
early and most people with the disease go on to
live long lives.
A lot has changed in recent years, he says.
“We really have to shine a light of hope on lung
cancer,” he says. “This is because it wasn’t that
long ago when we didn’t have good treatment
options for patients.
“With poor survival rates, national campaigns
such as those led by the American Cancer
Society focused primarily on getting people
to stop smoking,” he says. “While this was
important and was highly effective in lowering
the incidence of lung cancer, it shifted muchneeded attention away from remembering that
no one deserves to get lung cancer and that we
need more research to better understand how
to prevent and treat lung cancer in people who
smoked a lot, a little, or none at all.”
But there was an inflection point in lung cancer
therapies in recent years, Dr. Moghanaki says.
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