I’m a scientist studying mystery lung cancer in young people who’ve never smoked… now I’ve got it

Over the past few years, Dr Bryant Lin has noticed a shocking new trend among his demographic.

Young Americans, particularly of Asian descent, were developing deadly lung cancer, despite never picking up a cigarette. 

As a primary care physician to many Asian patients, and an Asian man himself, duty called.

In 2018, he founded the Center for Asian Health Research and Education at Stanford University to research why this group was prone to cancer and other long-term diseases.

But earlier this spring, he developed a lingering cough that lasted six weeks.

At first, he assumed it was just allergies and tried a series of inhalers. But when the cough persisted, Dr Lin texted a colleague, who ordered scans and a biopsy of his lung tissue.

Less than two weeks later, in May 2024, Dr Lin was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, despite never smoking a cigarette.

Dr Lin is one of the thousands of young people diagnosed with America’s deadliest cancer. 

Affecting more than 230,000 Americans every year and making up one in five cancer deaths, lung cancer is primarily caused by smoking. 

But as smoking declines in the US, rates of lung cancer are on the rise in people under 50 without a history of smoking.

This has been especially true for Asian American women, among whom rates have increased two percent per year since 2006. 

Dr Lin told Yahoo Life: ‘But I never would have thought that I would have this cancer, or become the poster child for my center working on this cancer.’

Dr Lin’s diagnosis inspired him to teach a new class at Stanford, which is meant to teach students about cancer treatment and empathy through the lens of a patient

The above shows lung cancer cases among men and women split by age groups. It reveals the disease is now more common in younger women, compared with other groups

His diagnosis inspired him to start teaching a new class at Stanford, with himself as a case study. The course is meant to teach students about cancer treatment and empathy through the lens of a patient. 

He said: ‘As a doctor, you have an awareness but not necessarily a visceral understanding of what a patient goes through. The data, the science — as a patient, that’s like two percent of your day. The rest of the day you’re dealing with your life, so we structured the class around that.’ 

He hopes it will teach students that ‘it’s very important to have empathy and an understanding for what [a patient’s] journey looks like.’ 

While Dr Lin was able to start chemotherapy just eight weeks after his cough starts, many young lung cancer patients have a delayed diagnosis due to doctors attributing their symptoms to more common conditions like asthma or bronchitis.

One small study, for example, found that lung cancer patients on average do not receive treatment for an average of 138 days after symptoms like cough, chest pain, and shortness of breath begin. 

While smokers make up as many as 90 percent of older lung cancer patients, this number drops to 71 percent for younger patients. 

Young patients also have significantly shorter exposures, with an average of 11.5 years compared to 49 years in older patients. 

According to recent data from Pew Research, just 10 percent of young adults said they smoked from 2019 to 2023 compared to 35 percent in 2001 to 2003.

While Dr Lin’s EGFR mutation makes him a candidate for targeted therapies, the cancer can become resistant to the treatment within a year or two

In Dr Lin’s case, genetic testing revealed his cancer was likely caused by a mutation of his EGFR gene. 

This means the cancer causes an excess of the EGFR protein, which can accelerate the growth of lung cancer cells.

He said: ‘About 50 percent of nonsmoker Asians [with lung cancer] have this mutation, and less than 20 percent of non-Hispanic whites have it. We don’t really know why Asians get this mutation more than other groups.’

This mutation can also make cancer more aggressive and be diagnosed at later stages. 

Dr Lin said: ‘Luckily it makes me a candidate for targeted therapy.’

He now takes the daily chemotherapy pill Osimertinib, sold under brand name Tagrisso, which attacks the mutated cancer cells. He also undergoes additional chemotherapy treatments every three weeks. 

However, he noted that the cancer can become resistant to these targeted therapies within a year or two, which could leave him with few options. 

Though the possibility seems grim, he remains optimistic. He said that a colleague told him: ‘You just have to live long enough for the next treatment to work.’