Letter from the Editor-in-Chief: Lung Cancer Can Look Like Anyone

Gini Harrison is a mom, a psychologist, and a professor in the United Kingdom. Harrison never smoked in her life and is living with stage 4 EGFR-positive lung cancer. Photo by Gini Harrison Up to 1 in 5 lung cancer cases in the United States occur in people who’ve never smoked, but our picture of the disease hasn’t caught up. Healthline Editor-in-Chief Robin Hough talks with Gini Harrison, a psychologist and his friend of nearly 30 years, whose only symptom was a sore shoulder blamed on breastfeeding. Her stage 4 EGFR-positive lung cancer diagnosis took nearly nine months. They discuss testing, catching lung cancer sooner, and the documentary film, Our Lungs: Time to Breathe, which follows filmmaker Sarah Li and the family of Alex, a 24-year-old who died weeks after diagnosis. Picture someone with lung cancer. Now picture a 24-year-old soccer player in the prime of his life. A filmmaker in her early 40s with a camera in her hand, doing what she loves best. A busy mom of two, with a shoulder so sore she can’t pick up her newborn, yet struggling to get a diagnosis. The gap between the picture in our heads and the people actually being diagnosed is costing time. And time is the one t…

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