DOCTORS OF INTEREST
74
Treasure Coast Medical Report
The LUNG SAVER
>>
BY GREG GARDNER
GREG GARDNER
Dr. Dennis Tishko sits in front of
a CT scanner used for imaging
to detect lung cancer at Martin
Health System in Stuart. The
scanner offers much clearer
pictures of the lungs than X-rays
for at-risk patients.
Dr. Dennis Tishko wants people to know
that lung cancer is not an automatic
death sentence.
“If it is taken out at an early stage, survival
approaches 100 percent,” said Tishko, the first dedicated
thoracic surgeon at Martin Health System in Stuart. “We
know that this particular part of Florida has a much higher
rate of lung cancer. If I had my own talk show we would be
talking about lung cancer. It is such a huge issue. Lung cancer
is killing more people than breast, colon, prostate, uterine
and ovarian cancers and AIDS put together.”
Smokers and former smokers should get a low-dose CT
chest scan, Tishko said. Such scans typically cost just $99. “By
the time you have symptoms it is often too late to save your
life. This is the best way to look at the structure of your chest
in general and your lungs in particular. There could be tissue
in the lungs that could harbor cancer. It is the only tool to
screen people to find it before there are symptoms.”
Tishko is one of 250 board-certified thoracic surgeons in the
U.S. and a pioneer in minimally invasive surgeries. He has
seen 150 patients since he came to Stuart from Ohio, where he
was performing about 400 surgeries a year. “We have done a
very good job telling people not to smoke. Now we need to tell
people what to do if you still smoke or used to smoke,” he said.
“It is a common misconception that secondhand smoke is
not a risk factor, although one in five lung cancer patients are
nonsmokers,” Tishko said. Beginning next year, the chest scan
will be available through insurance just as mammograms,
PSA tests and colonoscopies are now.
“There are other causes in the environment for lung cancer
other than smoking. This is not new. We have found cancers
in fossils. But there are groups of people we know we can
help,” Tishko said. Other people at risk could be welders and
those who worked with asbestos.
While reading a medical journal, Tishko found an article
by an Italian doctor who had performed surgeries just as he