Lung cancer? But I've never smoked 

06:31 PM PDT on Wednesday, June 8, 2005

By JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

Author and artist Tom Cross spends most days in a fantasy world.

"There is magic all around us. We see it every day, and in our current society we forget about it, big time," he said.

But Tom believes in magic, especially after a nagging backache that turned into a surprising diagnosis: stage four lung cancer.

"Parents never smoked. I wasn't around it, didn't live with smokers," he said.

Oncologist George Simon found that about 5 percent of lung cancer patients have never smoked. They also tend to live longer than smoking patients and have a different biological disease.

"Though we tend to clump all lung cancers together, there can be distinct disease entities with their own specific behavior patterns," he said.

For example, while the drug, Iressa, does not improve survival rates for smokers, it can help lung cancer patients who've never smoked. So far, it's working for Tom.

"You have the feeling you are riding the crest of a wave, and it's like yeah, I gotta stay on it," he said.

To help speed up the research, Tom and several other patients teamed up with Dr. Simon to create a Web site for patients who've never smoked.

"It will help us do studies quicker and finish them quicker so that we can understand more about this disease faster," said Dr. Simon.

Tom hopes that will help doctors treat others like him.

This spring, researchers discovered a genetic mutation that may explain why some people who've never smoked can still get lung cancer.