It’s Lung Cancer Awareness month, and SurvivorNet wanted to look at the successful journey of one very famous kick-ass lung cancer survivor, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to see what we could learn from her experience.
News broke in December, 2018, that Ginsburg, now 86, had surgery, called a lobectomy, to remove two cancerous nodules from her lungs. Her lung cancer was considered early-stage and was discovered in an X-ray she received after she fell in November and fractured several ribs.
Read MoreIs Treatment Age-Dependent?
Ginsburg was 85 when she was treated for lung cancer. According to Dr. Charu Aggarwal, a physician at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in patients with lung and neck cancer, “Age alone is not a predictor of outcomes and decisions regarding surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are often based on physiologic rather than chronological age.”However, for younger generations, Dr. Aggarwal says that genetic and molecular testing can often help doctors better understand which treatment path to choose.
“There are several new options, and lung cancer is often treated by precision medicine, therefore it is important to ask about gene sequencing, molecular testing and testing for biomarkers to assess response to immunotherapy,” she says.
Did RBG’s Notorious Exercise Routine Help Her Chances of Survival?
Ginsburg is known for staying active even during cancer, famously continuing to work out through her diagnoses and treatments. Ginsburg told an audience at UC Berkeley in California last month that even when she learned she had cancer on her pancreas, she kept up her routine. Though she didn't complete every workout, she said, she kept doing pushups and planks "both front and side" as well as weight bearing exercises with a personal trainer.
According to Dr. Aggarwal, exercise can be really beneficial in the context of cancer. “Exercise has been linked to improved outcomes, after all modalities including surgery, chemotherapy or radiation,” she says. “I always recommend that patients exercise as much as they physically can during therapy.”
How Will I Know if I Need a Lobectomy?
Ginsburg had her lobectomy after doctors noticed an abnormality in one of her lungs, according to NPR, and discovered two non-small cell cancerous lesions in additional biopsies.
“This is one of the most effective surgeries, where a lobe of the lung affected by cancer is removed, accompanied by resection of lymph nodes,” says Dr. Aggarwal. But it’s only useful in certain cases. “If surgery is deemed feasible, lobectomy is the preferred approach. The other approaches are radiation therapy, including stereotactic body radiation therapy approaches.”
According to a press release from the Supreme Court, there was no evidence of any additional disease after the surgery.
"If you have survived cancer, you have a zest for life that you didn't before," Ginsburg said at UC Berkeley.
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