Remembering Singer/Songwriter Eddie Rabbitt who Died of Lung Cancer 23 Years Ago Today

Although he considered all of his music to be country, the New Jersey-raised Rabbitt did not deny that some his music had a different sound than that of the older country tunes. He felt he was a part of a new movement of country as more people from cities like Atlanta and Nashville were entering the scene.

“I like what’s happened to country music,” Rabbitt said in an interview. “I think the kids that are coming out of it who are writing the new country music are citifying it a little bit.”

His last album, Beatin’ the Odds, was recorded after he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997 and had chemotherapy and surgery for treatment. The final project, with its lovely, optimistic name, was released just eight months before he died in 1998 at the age of 56.

In a piece for AllMusic, an online music database that catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, Charlotte Dillon wrote a glowing review of Rabbitt’s last album.

“Don’t let his illness during the making of this album lead you to believe it isn’t up to his normal standards,” Dillon wrote. “His vocal talent shines as brightly in this full-length offering as in any of the many others he completed during his long career a career that saw his songs earn him more than two dozen country hits and eight pop hits.”

Understanding Lung Cancer

Eddie Rabbitt’s diagnosis is not an uncommon one, unfortunately. Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer. And in the United States, it’s the leading cause of cancer deaths for both men and women. Symptoms for the disease often don’t appear until the cancer has spread, so diagnosis and treatment can be tricky.

The two main types are non-small cell, which makes up 85 percent of cases, and small-cell lung cancer. The two types act differently and require different types of treatment. Dr. Patrick Forde, a thoracic oncologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, tells SurvivorNet about how distinguishing between the two types and their subtypes can be very beneficial.

"Within that non-small cell category, there's a subtype called non-squamous adenocarcinoma, and that's the group of patients for whom genetic testing is very important on the tumor,” he explains. “Genetic testing is looking for mutations in the DNA, in the tumor, which are not present in your normal DNA."

Lung cancer is a very serious cancer, but the outlook is improving. With smoking rates on the decline, for example, fewer people are getting lung cancer. Also, improvements in surgical techniques and radiation delivery have improved outcomes and decreased side effects. And newer treatments like immunotherapy and targeted agents are dramatically improving the length and quality of life for lung cancer patients.

But Dr. Forde understands that first hearing of your lung cancer diagnosis can be an incredibly stressful time, so he also gave SurvivorNet some helpful steps to take after the diagnosis.

What Happens When You've Been Newly Diagnosed With Lung Cancer

“First, your medical team will stage the cancer with imaging, a CT scan usually and sometimes an MRI and MRI scan of the brain,” he says. “Then they need to get a sample of the tumor biopsy on which they perform some routine tests, the most important of which is a  PD-L1 test, which helps direct the use of immunotherapy, but also more complicated testing looking for gene mutations in the tumor.”

According to Dr. Forde, the most important questions to ask your doctor after a lung cancer diagnosis are:

• What’s my type of lung cancer?
• What is the stage of the cancer?
• If the cancer is metastatic or stage 4, what are the genetic mutation and the PD-L1 testing results?

And what is a PD-L1 test?

It’s where a sample of the tumor is stained a with a marker for PD-L1. The lab gives the tumor a percent expression score ranging from zero, where none of the cells have PD-L1 expression, up to 100 percent, where all of the cells have PD-L1 expression.

"The likelihood of the tumor responding to immunotherapy depends to a degree on the level of expression," Dr. Forde says. A tumor with 90% expression PD-L1 on the surface is more likely to respond than one that has no expression.

Dr. Forde also recommends that non-smokers make sure genetic testing is performed before going directly on immunotherapy.

Former & Current Heavy Smokers Should Get Lung Cancer Screenings Using CT Scan, Says Leading Expert

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