Chicago’s Northwestern Medicine is taking a significant step forward in the fight against lung cancer with the introduction of a new lung health center, aiming to catch the disease at an earlier stage.

This initiative follows recent research highlighting a troubling trend: lung cancer is increasingly affecting young women and non-smokers.

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According to Northwestern Medicine’s doctors, about 80% of lung cancer cases are identified only after reaching advanced stages. They assert that by recommending earlier screenings, more lives can be saved.

Danielle Hoeg shared her unexpected diagnosis, stating, “I had no symptoms. I had no idea. I was healthy. I take care of myself. I don’t smoke.”

Despite her healthy lifestyle, Hoeg became one of the individuals diagnosed with lung cancer, underscoring the need for proactive health measures.

“I’d be walking down the street, and every young woman who walked by, I think, oh my gosh, could they possibly have lung cancer?” Hoeg said. “Do I need to stop them and tell them that they need to go get checked?”

According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force of nearly 1,000 consecutive patients treated for lung cancer at Northwestern, researchers discovered only 35% would have qualified for screening.

It’s why Northwestern Medicine is helping to expand low dose CT screening by launching a comprehensive lung health center to detect lung, heart and bone conditions earlier.

“If we extend the screening from 40 years onwards, and go away from risk-based screening, we could really capture most lung cancer at early stage,” Dr. Ankit Bharat with the Lung Cancer Center said.

Dr. Bharat said the current recommendation for an annual lung cancer screening is for adults 50 and up who are smokers or have quit in the last 15 years.

He said their research has found current recommendation excludes two thirds of patients.. Disproportionately impacting women and non-smokers. Changing the recommendation to an earlier age, he said, will save lives.

“We can achieve our goal of detecting lung cancer at an early stage, more than 80% of the time, if that model was followed,” Dr. Bharat said.

“Continuously think about how lucky I was, and I need other women, other young people, to have the same luck I did,” Hoeg said.

Northwestern Medicine said their early lung screening scan takes less than 10 seconds and doesn’t need any dyes but does provide a complete picture of the chest cavity, creating a baseline image patients can keep for life.