NON SMOKER AND LUNG MASS

     We often talk about the smoking and the lung cancer. The incidence of lung cancer is high or 20 times that of nonsmoker. So when we see a spot on the lung it is easy to make decision . But even though the incidence of cancer is low in nonsmoker, it is not zero. So the decision making is difficult. The general public has a belief that the incidence is zero. That brings me to  the story of today. 

    I saw this new patient 55 years old male who had abnormal scan. He had no major complaints  related to lungs, but in 2019 he had car accident and he had been to er and had work up. He had a CT scan of chest and that had shown a spot on the lung , size of dime. He was told to do new , follow up scans .He did not do any scan till now in 2022. It may have been due to the belief that the non smoker do ont get cancer or may be that it was pandemic and since he had no symptoms , he thought he was OK .Any way he did not do new scan till 2022. The scan showed that the spot had increased in 3 years and it was now of a size of quarter  the coin. His primary care physician send him to me. He had been non smoker and has no cough , fever , chest pain or weight loss. He had no shortness of breath.

   His physical examination was unremarkable . He was not on any medications. I saw the scan . The mass had increased  and so i had discussion with him  . I told him that we have to do work up and then decide if we can do surgery to take it out. The usual things that I tell patients is that we need to answer 3 questions , namely is is cancer , has it spread  and what is the treatment . So I have ordered  PET SCAN , a breathing test and bronchoscopy. There is a tumor called carcinoid which some people call a cancer which rarely spread or benign tumor which can spread . I thing it may be carcinoid and only 100% way to know is to take it out. When we tried to schedule the tests , he wanted to postpone them . 

    So there are 2 points , one is that if he was a smoker he would not have waited for 3 years to do new scan or see lung specialist  and now that we know THAT IT HAS GROWN he was not in hurry to take steps to take it out . This comfort comes from the feeling that nonsmokers are immune to getting cancer. He may have cancer or carcinoid , the slow growth rate suggests that this may be carcinoid , but one cannot be 100% sure till surgery is done.