Lung cancer’s surprising new face: Younger, female, and never smoked a day in their life
Laura Hamann’s story is part of a growing trend that’s changing everything you thought you knew about lung cancer.
ST. LOUIS — When Laura Hamann went in for a scan after a miscarriage, lung cancer was the last thing on anyone’s mind. She was in her early 40s. She had never smoked a cigarette in her life.
“They happened to see a mass in my lung which was very concerning,” Hamann recalled.
What followed was a diagnosis of Stage 3 lung cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes — and a grueling treatment journey that included surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Through all of it, Hamann leaned on the one thing she could control: her mindset.
“It’s what can you control? You can’t control this, you can only do what you can to move forward and you take it day by day,” she said.
The new face of lung cancer
Hamann’s experience is no longer an outlier. Nearly 20 percent of new lung cancer diagnoses now occur in people who have never smoked — and many of them are women.
Dr. Paul Mehan, a medical oncologist with BJC Healthcare, says the misconception that lung cancer is a smoker’s disease is a myth.
“That’s a common misconception that lung cancer only happens to people who’ve smoked,” Dr. Mehan said.
The causes in non-smokers can be complex — genetics, air pollution, and workplace exposures like asbestos all play a role. But one of the most overlooked culprits is also one of the most invisible: radon gas, a naturally occurring, odorless gas that can seep into homes undetected.
“It’s naturally occurring and it’s felt to be the second most common cause of lung cancer,” Dr. Mehan said.
Hard to catch and easy to miss
What makes this trend especially alarming is how quietly the disease can develop. Many patients feel nothing at all.
“Initially, many people are asymptomatic,” Dr. Mehan said. “Sometimes we coincidentally find the cancer on an imaging study that’s done for other reasons.”
That was exactly the case for Hamann. Her cancer was discovered entirely by accident — found only because she was being scanned for something else entirely.
Reasons for hope
The medical landscape, however, is changing rapidly. Advances in targeted drug therapies now allow doctors in many cases to attack the cancer with precision — with dramatically better outcomes than previous generations of treatment.
“It’s definitely a fist pump kind of moment,” Dr. Mehan said. “Response rates are very high and survival is good and people can go back to their normal life.”
More than a decade later
Laura Hamann is proof of that progress. Today, more than ten years after her diagnosis, she is not only alive-she is thriving. She works as an ICU pharmacist at the very hospital where she was treated.
“I made it. And then some. So I feel very blessed. Yes,” she said.
Her story carries a message doctors want more people to hear: lung cancer doesn’t always begin with smoking. And sometimes, the people most at risk never see it coming.
Doctors recommend homeowners test for radon gas, which can be detected with inexpensive testing kits available at most hardware stores. More about Radon gas and it’s dangers in part two of our series. High-risk individuals should speak with their physician about lung cancer screening options.
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