Saved by a CT scan: Patient hopes her experience inspires others to get screened
A 55-year-old woman in Tampa, Florida, is urging fellow smokers to keep a close eye on their health after an impromptu CT scan saved her life.
FOX 13 News wrote Kathy Swan was diagnosed with lung cancer after her doctor ordered a low-dose CT scan of her lungs. The physician took the extra step because Swan had been a smoker for years and was continuing to smoke at the time of her exam.
She wasn’t expecting any bad news during her physical, though. Her initial exam and x-ray were clean, so it was a surprise when two nodules in her lungs lit up.
“I went in thinking there would be absolutely nothing wrong,” she told FOX 13.
Doctors were able to remove the cancerous growth quickly, without any radiation or chemotherapy needed, Swan said, but her case is both rare and fortuitous. Lung cancer patients often have no symptoms until later in the course of disease, when survival chances drop by more than 50 percent.
“It saved me,” Swan said. “It can save your life. You definitely need to do it.”
Read Swan’s story here:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.