>reporter>yeah. blindsided by a life changing and some deadly condition. yeah. growing. number of asian american women who have never smoked. diagnosed with lung cancer. today? we look at the research right? here in the bay area. yeah. yeah. yeah. yeah. the

fight for funding. patients. are fine. hope. >liz>thanks. you so much for joining us. today. as well. mark asian american. and pacific. islander hair. month or taking a close look today at a serious health concern. the uptick in asia asian american women diagnosed with lung cancer. it's often undetected until a late stage and a growing number of patients have never smoked before today, we're hearing from the bay area researchers working to figure out what's behind it, and the women hoping their stories of resilience will inspire others. that conversation in just a moment. but 1st, let's get to today's news headlines. one

person was hospitalized after a fire broke out at a senior living facility in san francisco. it happened along for street that japantown peace. plaza. crews rescued or assisted. all of the seniors who were there at the time. palestinian protesters greeted president joe biden in portola valley today. these demonstrators chanted and waved flags as the presidential motorcade drove by. president biden is here in the bay area for a pair of fundraisers. governor gavin newsom announced a revised budget plan that includes 27. 0 in cuts. those are on top of the cuts that state leaders already agreed to this year. the budget would slash 10,000. vacant. state jobs. lawmakers have until june 15th to pass the budget. and the stern growth festival unveiled its lineup for the summer tegan and sara opened the 10 week festival. june 23rd other headliners include the commodores. herbie hancock and the san francisco symphony at all ends august 25th, which shaka khan the shows are free,

but if you can't go, don't worry. we'll be carrying many of them live on picks, plus 44. cable 12. all right onto 1st alert weather now this time lapse video shows the marine layer just moving through this morning. isn't that amazing? meteorologist darren peck is in our virtual view studio to show us why that actually meant to cool down or a warmup today, depending on where you live.

thank you, darren this afternoon. we want to shed light on a condition. impacting more and more. asian american women, and it remains a mystery as to why lung cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in both men and women here in the united states. and now a bay area based study finds that 80% 80% of asian american women with lung cancer. never smoked. they're also 1.5, to 2 times more likely to be diagnosed than any other race. group. i spoke with the researchers and patients who are working to figure out what's behind this. >reporter>vicky needs doesn't take walks like this for granted. each step has a purpose, and she's rarely by herself. and if you happen to pass them, you might think these are just 2 friends catching up. but the women who join her all share a common bond. they all have stage 4

lung cancer. started 5. years of when she got a call. from her doctor. >but i remember vividly. that he called me while we were out having dinner. yeah. and, um, left a voicemail. >reporter>before she knew it. vicky was sitting in an oncologist office. >cancer comes out of doctors, mouth, so that's kind of not >reporter>good. never smoked a day in her life. but yet this 48 year old mother of 2 has stage 4 lung cancer.

now 53. and the treatment. have been brutal. they've given her high blood pressure and high cholesterol. cancer. has now spread to her. abdomen. but it's not the physical side effects that hurt the most. vicky has 2 daughters, who were 13 and 15 when she was 1st diagnosed. ago, vicky was asked to participate. in a research program at ucsf. called fans fans. standing for female asian. never smokers. launched 15 years ago by dr scarlett gomez. and dr iona chang a 1st of its kind study in the us on

why lung cancer rates were rising. among asian females. who never smoked. >rates actually have been declining. over the past several decades. but what was sort of emerged as an unusual observation is that the exception to that trend was among asian american >reporter>female doctors hope the fans study leads to the development of more preventative measures and screening. but also grabbed the attention of the folks with the deep pockets. right now. listen, 1% of funding from the national institute of health. goes to diseases that impact the asian american. community.

yeah. vicky. isn't spending her energy. wondering why or how she got lung cancer. she is turning her pain. into purpose. by reaching out to other women like 34 year old kid ho, who she recruited to also be part of the fans study. it was diagnosed on thanksgiving of last year. doctors discovered 4 tumors in her brain that they believe were linked to lung cancer.

just like vicki. she never smoked. she's also a mom. will often joined vicky on our walks. al in the same fight. >it's like a a safety blanket for me to know. other people are in the area. >reporter>cancer has taught her anything it's that life can change. in an instant. vicky is focusing on the things that bring her joy family. friends. and helping others know that even in their hardest moments, they won't have to walk this path. alone. >liz>now the fans study looks

at a patient's genetics and family. history as well as an environmental aspects and lifestyle. exposures. they're also looking for participants is specially older asian women who do not have lung cancer to join their study from more for more information on the fence study. you can go to our website k p i x.com. still ahead. we talk live with 1 of the doctors who helped start the fans study more than a decade ago. about what she seeing with her patients

this afternoon. our conversation centers around a cancer. up. involving asian american. women. are growing growing number of lung cancer cases and the diagnosis. often seems to come completely out of nowhere. joining me now is dr heather wakely, professor of medicine and chief of the division of oncology at stanford university. she is also the deputy director of the stanford cancer. institute. thank you so much for being >>here. thank you for having me and for covering this really important >liz>topic. it is an important topic and you actually approach doctor. dr scarlett gomez, who we met in the last block about what you were seeing in your practice among asian american women diagnosed with lung cancer. what were you saying? >>we were noticing in clinic that many of the patients coming in. we're presenting. they never had a smoking history. and many of them asian american and so really wanted. to try to understand the why of >liz>that >>we started looking at the question about why are people who have never smoked, getting lung cancer? and then really

focused on how that might be different in different asian american communities. and just kind of built from there, and we had been talking for a long time about doing this type of a trial that became the fans study case control trial where we're really able to ask the questions, as opposed >liz>to >>just looking. what's already been published but really generating some of the new information >liz>as well. now it's important to note the study is still ongoing. so the final results aren't out yet. but what do you think is behind this uptick? >>i think it's likely going to be multiple. >liz>things, okay? >>we do think that there is some kind of genetic >liz>risk, >>but we haven't been able to identify it and we being the global medical community because many people have >liz>looked >>but we know that the rate of lung cancer for people who don't have any history of smoking cigarettes is highest in far east asia and then kind of gets lower. as you move west. in the us, of course, it's going to vary based >liz>on the >>people who live in the area where you are. there is some sort of genetic risk their but we also think this uptick is a

lot of its related to air pollution, and there's been some science clearly linking that, but there's a lot that we still can't specifically say it's had this or how >liz>that and specifically specifically asian american. women. is there a hormonal component to this? why not asian american >>men? it is actually in both men and women, but it's much more in the asian american >liz>women. >>part of that, and i'm not trying to to get too technical, but we know that a lot of the lung cancer that develops and that's specific group of people has a mutation. in a gene called e g. fr. and that gene is the driver for lung cancer. for many people who get lung cancer, especially in that history of nonsmoking um and it's >liz>in asia, >>so it's asian americans, but it's also in asia that this phenomenon is being seen and that tends to happen more in women than men. we don't know why, and that hormonal linked to it is something many people have looked at looking at. is it estrogen? is it progesterone

is some combination. perhaps linked somewhat to progesterone. but >liz>not >>an actually causing more of that. so the women's health initiative as a long ago study that looked >liz>at >>hormone replacement and showed a lot of things but 1 of the things that showed was those risks of lung cancer. one necessarily. higher. but the cancers might be a little bit more aggressive when there was a progesterone compote. but we don't have a >liz>great answer. now. what do you think is behind the recent uptick recent meaning or last 15 years? is it because you're just getting better at finding lung cancer, or do you think that there's something going on that's leading to more women? getting lung cancer? >>we think there's actually a true increase in the incidents in the people actually getting the disease. there's been some great global work, especially in taiwan, where they could show >liz>that >>even though smoking rates were coming down the rates of adenocarcinoma specific type of lung cancer that we see in the most common but especially the ones seen in people who don't have a history of smoking

cigarettes. that was shooting up dramatically. especially in the women. here. we don't collect as detailed information. on the smoking history to be able to answer that from the you know. questions as clearly but in work that's been done. we are seeing that increase. also. screening finding it earlier. is something that we are not very good at especially for this group of people. so we don't think it's the screening because we just aren't doing lung cancer screening for people who don't have obvious risk. factors. so we think that's really going up and that's why it's such a significant public. health issue. >liz>i want to. i want to go off that because so many of the women we spoke to don't find out they have lunch. cancer until their in stage. 4. why is that and the symptoms don't really present. themselves until it's such an advanced >>state, right, right? lung cancer. it is silent disease. we think about it that way for a lot of reasons, but especially because it can grow without any symptoms. really pain receptors in the lung, and

so you don't feel anything. if it happens to grow close in where it can cause a cause. that could be a symptom. a lot of times, there's just no evidence that it's their until someone has some people are going to get lucky, and they have something else happened, which leads them to get an x ray and boom it's found but a lot of times people don't come in until they're having later. symptoms >liz>such as >>pain because it's gone somewhere else, or really significant cough, so that's the challenge and it's 1 of the big things we want to work on also is. how do we find these cancers early and we want to figure out why they're happening. we want to stop them from happening. and if we can't do that, at least find them early enough that were able to cure more >liz>people. so much that's being done in this particular field in the advancements that are being made each year, we're going to have you stick around for 1 more break, and we're going to talk about the exciting treatments and hope is on t

this entire half hour. we've been focusing on lung cancer. and asian american women. many of whom have never smoked now we turn our attention to how far the fight against this type of lung cancer has come. and where it goes from here. we're joined again by dr heather wakely, the chief of the division of oncology at stanford university. thank you for joining us >>once again >liz>as we've seen the numbers. start to climb with asian american women who never smoked, getting lung cancer.

we're also seeing dramatic advancements. in the way that we're treating this cancer. what have you discovered? >>well, the big discoveries go back over a couple of decades with this recognition. that with a lot of lung cancer, there's really a single >liz>gene >>that gets a mutation of change. gives selling a ability to just keep growing and dividing and not die the way we should for being an abnormal cell and we can find that specific. gene. that's and that mutation in it. we have now have many, many stories where we developed specific drugs that hit exactly that. we call them targeted. therapies. um and these these types of changes. mutations. in the genes. that lead to the cancer in this very simple story >liz>of >>1 change. new protein changes to sell becomes the cancer. that tends to happen more often, and people who develop lung cancer who don't have a smoking history. and in this group, especially with asian american women, some of its at egypt far jean i mentioned earlier there are several

others that we know and we can find >liz>them. >>then, instead of having to talk about chemotherapy, we're talking about targeted therapy, which is usually a pill >liz>drug >>people take it every day. and many of these can work for a number of years, people are living living full lives without the side effects we think about with some of our other cancer therapies. and then more recently, the immune based therapies have really taken >liz>hold. >>where we're learning more and more how to get our own immune system to recognize the cancer better. attack it >liz>better >>and that sets up a life. surveillance. so we can imagine >liz>these >>sort of working and working and working as opposed to the the shorter duration that we often see with some of our older >liz>treatments. it's amazing how much the treatments have advanced in just the past 5 years. what do you most excited about? that's good. you think it's going to happen in the next 5 years? i mean, are we eventually is the potential that we're going to have a lung cancer vaccine, maybe, like they do with breast cancer with the developing with breast cancer, or maybe earlier. screening for people who test positive for this particular

type >>of jean. i would love to see >liz>all of those. yes. >>especially. i think the screening is an area that we're really working on. >liz>so >>right now lung cancer screenings limited only to people who have a smoking history. united states great work being done in the east coast, dr lynn sham. 1 of our surgeons, natalie louis, and i think other investigators in this area talking about how do we bring that here? how do we do more of that screening it's standard now in taiwan and other parts of the world where that's recognized. that and other ways. besides scans. blood tests other ways to find cancers early. that's all going to be coming, and then we think about those treatments. what's most exciting to me? it's as immune based >liz>therapies. >>long way to go, especially >liz>in >>the types of lung cancer that we've been talking about here. because those cancers have usually just a single gene mutation >liz>to start >>with. they look a lot like the rest of the body, and it's hard for the immune system to recognize them as something different, so we have to get even

>liz>better >>at helping train the immune system. hey, that's the cancer get that leave the rest of the body >liz>alone. >>and we're making >liz>that progress and i think, also joining the fans study things like that, or is really what's going to lead to hopefully more people recognizing that these women i need this attention. no question. and you can go to our website and they still need people to participate >>in absolutely do. and so the study is open for women who have been diagnosed with lung cancer. who are asian american who don't have a smoking history, but it's a case control trial. meaning we're also looking for people who don't have lung cancer. who can be those controls to help us understand? why are some people getting lung cancer? other people who otherwise seen the same >liz>not >>so, yes. so we are really still looking. for >liz>volunteers. go to kpix.com and click on this story will have all of the information on the fans study. thank you so >>

we want to thank you for joining us for today. conversation on asian american women with lung cancer. and the bay area. research around it. you can find more information on our website k p i x.com. >> norah: relentless severe storms slammed the south. >> what the [bleep] go! >> norah: tonight the devastation from another tornado outbreak as more than 200,000 customers are without power afwi