Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube and senior executive of Google, passed away on August 10th local time due to lung cancer at the age of 56.
Wojcicki's husband announced the news of his wife's death and stated that Wojcicki passed away after fighting non-small cell lung cancer for two years.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai called Wojcicki one of the most outstanding women in the tech industry. She joined Google in 1999 and became the CEO of YouTube in 2014. In 2023, Wojcicki resigned from his position at YouTube and returned to his family.
For a long time in the past, old age, male gender, and smoking were described as "high-risk factors for lung cancer" in textbooks. But in recent years, more and more women have also been deeply affected by lung cancer. Andrea McKee, a lung cancer specialist and radiation oncologist at the American Lung Association, referred to lung cancer as a "hidden female malignancy".
Wojcicki's non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a common pathological type of lung cancer, and most NSCLC patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage.
Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, with 2.5 million cases diagnosed globally in 2022, accounting for 12.4% of all cancer deaths. Lung cancer is also the cancer that causes the highest number of cancer deaths worldwide, with 1.8 million deaths from lung cancer in 2022, almost 19% of all cancer deaths.
According to the American Cancer Society, there will be approximately 237000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States in 2022, with 118000 male and 119000 female confirmed cases, respectively. Female patients will outnumber male patients.
In the past, studies have found that the incidence rate of lung cancer in young and middle-aged women is higher than that in men. The latest analysis of the burden of lung cancer in the United States published by JAMA Oncology shows that the demographic structure of new lung cancer in the United States continues to change, and the trend of female incidence higher than that of men has expanded from 30-49 years old to 30-54 years old.
Although the incidence rate of lung cancer in men is still higher than that in women over 55 years old, the gap is narrowing. Researchers call for increased investment and exploration of the reasons for the high incidence of female lung cancer, and to promote and improve lung cancer screening strategies.
Chen Haiquan, director of the Chest Cancer Research Institute of Fudan University, chief expert in multiple disciplines of chest cancer and director of the Lung Cancer Center, said that many countries around the world are aware that the incidence of female lung cancer is on the rise. Even among non-smokers in Asia, the incidence rate of lung cancer in all age groups is higher in women than in men. But he said that the medical community is not clear about the main etiological factors that affect these changes in the epidemiological characteristics of lung cancer.
Professor Li Ming, Director of the Department of Geriatric Radiology at East China Hospital and Director of the Zhang Guozhen Pulmonary Nodule Diagnosis and Treatment Center, told First Financial reporters that similar to the United States, female lung cancer patients account for about 55% of adult lung cancer patients in China, which is also higher than male patients.
"The occurrence of lung cancer is caused by multiple factors, and there is no final conclusion on why the incidence rate of women is higher than that of men," Li Ming told China Business News.
He believes that the number of deaths from lung cancer ranks first among all types of cancer, mainly due to insufficient early screening rates. The detection rate of early lung cancer is less than 30%, and the mortality rate in the middle and late stages will significantly increase, "he said." Early lung cancer has no signs and can only be screened through lung CT, while many people who are diagnosed with lung cancer in the late stage have not undergone lung CT. Pulmonary nodules are the most common manifestation of early lung cancer
According to data released by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute in 2023, the early 5-year survival rate for lung cancer still exceeds 60%, the mid-term survival rate is 37%, and the late stage survival rate is only 7%.
In recent years, multiple lung cancer targeted drugs have been approved by the US FDA, bringing good news to lung cancer patients. These drugs have also accelerated their entry into the Chinese market.
In June of this year, AstraZeneca announced that the world's first third-generation EGFR-TKI lung cancer targeted drug, Axitinib (Tiresa), combined with first-line chemotherapy, has been approved in China for the treatment of EGFR mutant advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
Professor Zhou Caicun, Director of the Oncology Department at Tongji University Affiliated Oriental Hospital, pointed out to First Financial Journalist the pain points in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. He said, 'The detection rate for certain specific targets is relatively high, such as EGFR, ALK, ROS1, etc. However, the detection of less common targets is currently not covered, and these patients do not have the opportunity for targeted therapy.'. So, we also need to pay attention to how to do genetic testing well