By: Laura Eggertson

Stephen Sollows was an active, engaged 63-year-old who had never smoked when he became one of 1000 Nova Scotians every year who receive the devastating news that they have lung cancer.

In Mr. Sollows’ case, his cancer had already spread to his spine, his pelvis, his hip, and a bone in his leg before he was diagnosed.

“I’ve been perfectly healthy all my life,” says the retired small business owner from Yarmouth, N.S. “This just came out of the blue.”

Nova Scotia has the highest rate of lung cancer in the country, and the disease costs more than 700 people their lives annually. That sobering statistic makes medical research for lung cancer vital.

One of the greatest difficulties doctors currently encounter when treating lung cancer is that doctors diagnose most people only once the disease is advanced. By the time people experience symptoms, conventional treatment is often unsuccessful.

At an advanced stage, the five-year-survival rate, on average, is less than 20 percent. Those statistics are even more dire in Nova Scotia: five-year-survival rate is 14 per cent.

Fortunately, Mr. Sollows had a particular kind of genetic mutation in his tumours for which there was a treatment. For the last four years, since his 2020 diagnosis, he has responded to a new medication, called osimertinib. Health Canada approved the drug to treat his type of non small-cell lung cancer in 2016.

He also received radiation to his spine and ablative stereotactic radiation treatment to eradicate the cancer in his lung.

Although the treatments haven’t cured Mr. Sollows, they have extended his life and allowed him to continue cycling, kayaking, hiking, and the other activities he enjoys, with little to no pain.

“Without research in cancer treatments and therapies, I simply wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I just feel so well, and have been so active. It gives you hope that you can have a future.”

Although smoking is the primary cause of lung cancer, today, as many as 30 percent of all new lung cancer diagnoses occur in people like Mr. Sollows, who never smoked.

“We’re seeing a huge rise,” says Dr. Robin Urquhart, an associate professor at Dalhousie who holds the Canadian Cancer Society (Nova Scotia Division) Endowed Chair in Population Cancer Research.

Exposure to radon gas, arsenic, and air pollution are the culprits for the lung cancer diagnoses among nonsmokers, Dr. Urquhart says.

Climate Change Raises Risk

Climate-driven events, such as melting permafrost that exposes more of the rocks containing radon, flooding that leaves more arsenic in drinking water supplies, and forest fires that produce more air pollution, are increasing exposure to these dangerous toxins—making the Canadian Cancer Society’s Breakthrough Team’s research even more urgent.

“We’re studying activity patterns and we’re all studying how this contributes to the development of cancer,” Dr. Urquhart says.

To figure out how many people here have been exposed to radon, arsenic (through well water and other drinking water) and other heavy metals via air pollution, the scientists are collecting samples of people’s toenails.

Toenails, it turns out, are an excellent storehouse of heavy metal exposure.

They’re easy to test, and will ultimately enable the researchers to develop a scale, so they can advise people above a certain threshold that they are of increased risk of lung cancer and should get screened.

Hopeful Advances

The Canadian Cancer Society study is only one of the ways Dalhousie researchers are tackling the high rates of lung cancer, though. Our scientists are also investigating the use of cell therapy against lung cancer.

Dr. Jeanette Boudreau and Dr. Dan Gaston are exploring the use of Natural Killer cells, which are members of the immune system, to trigger a targeted immune response to destroy lung cancer cells.

Another Dalhousie researcher, Dr. Brent Johnston, is also studying the role of NK cells in beating this disease. Lung cancer researchers in the United States are also studying the use of CAR-T cell therapy, another form of transplanted cell therapy that uses a patient’s own reengineered cells to super-charge the immune system and cause it to attack cancerous cells. If that therapy proves successful, the head of Nova Scotia’s CAR-T program will be keen to see it approved here.

In all these lung cancer research projects, philanthropic donations are critical to move the generation of new knowledge forward, and to transform that knowledge into clinical practice and public policy.

“Lung cancer has been so under-funded for years and now there’s an opportunity to see the growth in treatment that is saving lives, but also extending lives,” says Mr. Sollows. “I’m living proof that you can live a very active healthy life at Stage 4.”