Dr. Brian Gotkin from Memorial Physician Group joined August’s Lung Cancer Living Room to discuss the importance of having a pulmonologist on your care team. He detailed how pulmonologists contribute to early detection, screening, diagnosis, staging, therapeutics, treatment management, follow-up scans, and overall lung health. He shared that his #1 priority is to provide you with a better quality of life by managing your lungs.

Speakers:    
  • Brian Gotkin, MD, Medical Director, Adult Pulmonology, Director, Lung Cancer Screening and Incidental Lung Nodule Screening Program, Memorial Physician Group 
  • Danielle Hicks, GO2 for Lung Cancer Chief Patient Officer 
Discussed in this episode:    
  • Lung cancer screening is the best way to discover cancer as early as possible. Watch this easy-to-understand video to learn more about your lung health and screening.  
  • Lung nodules are abnormal spots that may show up on your lung cancer screening CT scan or other imaging test. Learn more about lung nodules.  
  • Biopsies are procedures where tissue or fluid is removed from the body to determine if a suspicious area is cancer. Learn more about understanding your biopsy and pathology. 
  • Biomarker testing tells your healthcare team if the cancer has mutated or changed. These results guide your team in recommending the best treatment for you. Learn more about biomarker testing and why it’s important.  
  • Staging tells you if and where lung cancer has spread. Lung cancer is staged using the most commonly used system called “TNM staging.” TNM looks at the size of the tumor (T), if and how much the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes (N), and if/how far the cancer has spread beyond the lymph nodes, known as metastasis (M). 
  • Learn more about each staging in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): stage 1 (I), stage 2 (II), stage 3 (III), stage 4 (IV).  
  • Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is generally described as being either limited stage or extensive stage. Limited stage indicates that the cancer has not spread beyond one lung and the lymph nodes near that lung. Extensive stage indicates that the cancer is in both lungs or has spread to other areas of the body. 
  • Traveling after a lung cancer diagnosis may require additional precautions to ensure your comfort, such as flying with supplemental oxygen. 
  • Multidisciplinary care teams are made up of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from different fields who work together to provide high-quality, coordinated care.   

Please join us on Oct. 15, 2024 at 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET for the next Lung Cancer Living Room covering “Immunotherapy’s Impact on Lung Cancer Treatment.” Join in person at our San Carlos, CA office or watch on YouTube Live.    

For more information on the Living Room, other GO2 for Lung Cancer programs, or support through diagnosis and treatment, please contact GO2’s HelpLine at 1-800-298-2436 or email support@go2.org.  

You can now receive text reminders about upcoming Living Room events by texting the word “LivingRoom” to 844-871-7558.