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

bounds in terms of our discoveries of what causes cancer in asian american populations, doctor scarlett lin gomezith ucsf is one of the three principal investigators. >> she says a lot of people don't know that cancer is the number one cause of death among asian americans. there is this preconception that cancer is not a problem among asian american communities. doctor gomez also says surprisingly, many asian american women have lung cancer and they do not smoke. >> there has been no study done to study this specifically in the us, so we don't know what the factors are. >> a majority of the patients that i do see, although typically lung cancer, breast cancer at northeast medical services in chinatown, doctor justin kwok, an oncologist, sees about 20 to 30 asian american patients a day. about 40% of females that i see have cancer, that a lung cancer that is not associated with smoking, it's astronomical. >> doctors don't know why that's happening. >> speculation is that they are exposed to spouses that smoke, or maybe the way they cook their their foods using a wok. but that's all speculation. we