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“Here I am going in for a routine eye exam and now all of a sudden I have a possible malignant spot on my lung. I mean talk about shell shock,” she said. Before the time came for the MRI on that Thursday — which didn’t detect anything suspicious — Vanderlick was already speaking with Dr. Sanket Thakore, a pulmonary specialist who treats and diagnoses critical lung conditions with minimally invasive techniques. Thakore immediately discussed taking a biopsy since Vanderlick was already in the hospital, she said. “When you have something suspicious like that you want to know right away about how bad it is,” Vanderlick said. “With this alone, you are already overwhelmed and don’t want a lot of drama or trauma even more than you are already experiencing.” On Friday that same week, Thakore used a new technique called robotic bronchoscopy procedure, and available at YNHH.

The new guidelines recommend cancer screenings even if smokers quit decades ago. That’s because early detection and new therapies can boost survival.

Are you eligible for lung cancer screening? Earlier this week, the American Cancer Society (ACS) released updated lung cancer screening guidelines that will allow more than 5 million additional U.S. adults who smoke and formerly smoked to get screened for lung cancer. Typically, screening finds the early stage cancers while the later-stage cancers are found when people have symptoms, Daniel Boffa, MD, division chief of thoracic surgery and clinical director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital told Health. “Screening works by finding dangerous cancers before they do dangerous things,” he said. “Overall people that participate in lung cancer screening reduce their chances of dying of lung cancer by 20%.”

Hosted by Benjamin L. Judson, MD, MBA, Charles W. Ohse Professor of Surgery, and J3P Healthcare Solutions, the Life of a Surgeon series aims to address challenges and build a supportive community for early-career surgeons.

Lung cancer takes the lives of about 127,000 people in the United States annually — nearly the same number of people who will die from colon, breast and prostate cancer combined. And yet 1 out of 5 people who smoked could have saved their life with a simple test — a low-dose CT scan — catching the cancer before it spreads to lymph nodes and other vital organs. Tragically, this simple test — one of our best weapons against one of the most dangerous cancers — is not being used frequently enough. As a result, tens of thousands of people are lost each year to a disease they could have beaten.

The Department of Surgery was recognized among the best hospitals for adult and pediatric surgical care by the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

This series, hosted by Dr. Frederick L. (Rick) Greene, will highlight the role of cancer registrars and cancer registries in the universal treatment of malignancy. Each segment will feature cancer registrars, clinicians, organizations, researchers and representatives of all healthcare groups who contribute to and benefit from data that are derived from cancer registries.

Yale School of Medicine Professor of Surgery (Vascular), Alan Dardik, MD, PhD, has received an NIH Research Project Grant (R01) for his proposal, “Adaptive immunity regulates arteriovenous fistula remodeling.”