Sticking to lifestyle guidelines may reduce risk for certain cancers and for overall mortality

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Sticking to lifestyle guidelines may reduce risk for certain cancers and for overall mortality

– Reported, December 16, 2014

Lung cancer is the number-one cause of cancer related deaths in America. Four-hundred and fifty people die each day from this disease. Startling numbers, but doctors say we can still win the cancer battle if we start early and with intervention. One woman won the fight and it only cost her 49-dollars.

Deborah Kerns has always loved a bargain especially when her mother found her the deal of a lifetime! A newspaper ad listing a lung CT screening for just 49 bucks.

Carol Swaynie, Deborah’s Mother told Ivanhoe, “The last line said, by the time we get through with you you’ll know everything you want to about your lungs.”

Deborah smoked for 44-years and developed a nasty cough. “It hurt when I would cough” she explained.

Her mom left the paper out with 50-dollars and crossed her fingers. Kerns said, “I thought fine. I’ll make the call so she’ll quit harping me.”

Deborah went and what she found out was shocking. “I’m one of those people, it’s not going to happen to me, they’re not going to find anything” Kerns said.

DuyKhanh P. Ceppa, MD, Thoracic Surgeon of Indiana University Health Simon Cancer Center told Ivanhoe, Submit“There were two areas both in the same left lobe that were concerning.”

The lung CT scan revealed two suspicious spots on Deborah’s left lung.
 

“I recommended that she have surgery in order to have these taken out and it turned out she indeed did have lung cancer” Dr. Ceppa explained.

Indiana University Health Simon Cancer Center is one of several medical institutions in the country to offer low or no cost lung CT screenings to patients. The goal is to find cancer before it’s too late.

“Decreasing the risk of lung disease, decreasing the risk of heart disease, and decreasing the risk of developing other cancers” Dr. Ceppa told Ivanhoe.

Each year 165-thousand smokers die. Today, Deborah is cancer free thanks to a small ad, her doctors and her mother’s persistence.

“Oh, the best 50-dollars that I ever spent” Swaynie said.

Although Deborah is cancer free, she still struggles with nicotine addiction. Doctors will keep track of her progress in case the cancer comes back.