Explaining lung cancer following Pope Leo's treatment

Time now, 5:32, and we got news from the Vatican here today that Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born Pope ever, is healthy. He is walking and eating after having successful surgery. We learned that he was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent treatment for that, removing a portion of his right lung. The Vatican says surgery was about an hour and a half or so. It was successful, no complications, and in the next couple of days, we'll get some more details in regards to his treatment plan moving forward and you know joining us to talk more about that treatment plan and what this can look like because it's not just the pope other folk other people across the country are impacted by lung cancer as well we have uh professor uh excuse me professor Saeed Jafari a professor of oncology at UT Health Houston uh doctor thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me okay um can you give us a little bit of insight into this type of lung cancer and how important is early detection? So yeah, lung cancer is one of the common cancers. It's probably the third most common cancer diagnosed in US after prostate and breast cancer. But in terms of mortality, it is the leading cause of mortality. In fact, more Americans die of lung cancer every year than colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer, the next two combined. And the majority of cases, about half of cases by the time the cancer is diagnosed is already stage four. That's why lung cancer screening is very important, especially those who are smokers. So they should undergo annual low-dose CT scan to detect early cancer. And once cancer is detected, then they can undergo surgery like lobectomy. Wow. Can you tell me more about that? So is that in your yearly physical, your annual physical? You can tell your doctor you want a CT scan? How does that work exactly? So it's kind of like mammograms, like women have mammograms for screening. In the same way, it is not applicable to all the people, but only to high-risk people. So people who are, let's say, age 50 plus and have at least 20-pack-year history of smoking, meaning they have been smoking for at least 20 years, then they are eligible for low-dose CT scan. Doing it in everyone, those who don't have high risk of lung cancer, is not practical and it's not going to yield the results. So it's more applicable to smokers. you know. Though it is true that about 15% of lung cancer happens in never smokers also, you know. Majority are smokers, but 15% are in those who have never smoked. Can you talk about the lung capacity? Because the Pope is 71 years old, removed a portion of his lung there. Does that impact your capacity for breathing and the functionality of the lung? Yeah, it does. It can. What we do is do lung function tests before deciding on surgery. So we have ways of assessing what the lung function would be before and after surgery. And if the patient has the correct parameters, they can undergo surgery. I mean, for routine activity, it may not make much of a difference. But let's say somebody undergoes exercise or runs, then that may be an issue. But for routine activity, usually it's not an issue. Yeah. And the Pope had surgery. It was only an hour and a half, and now he's already up and drinking and eating. I would suspect that this procedure isn't entirely too invasive so can you talk about that as well as the recovery yes although i'm not a surgeon but these days rather than having a big incision we use an endo scopic procedures meaning make small holes and then put cameras and then do surgery through that so that makes the recovery time much faster and when patients can recover very quickly and they have very few complications from this all right any final thoughts here doctor before we wrap things up i would say the smoking is the biggest risk factor for for lung cancer So the best is not to start smoking or to quit smoking. But if those who are smoking, I would highly encourage them to speak with your primary care doctor about getting lung cancer screening done. It's just one test once a year, and it can really make a difference if there's early detection of cancer. Yeah, such good information. Dr. Saeed Jafari, thank you so much for joining us here. Very welcome. Thank you for having me.