STAT: ‘But I never smoked’: A growing share of lung cancer cases is turning up in an unexpected population
By Sharon Begley
Breast cancer wouldn’t have surprised her; being among the 1 in 8 women who develop it over their lifetime isn’t statistically improbable. Neither would have colorectal cancer; knowing the risk, Mandi Pike “definitely” planned to have colonoscopies as she grew older.
But when a PET scan in November 2019 revealed that Pike, a 33-year-old oil trader, wife, and mother of two in Edmond, Okla., had lung cancer — she had been coughing and was initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia — her first reaction was, “but I never smoked,” she said. “It all seemed so surreal.”
