Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer: 55 Real Stories
55 stories match lung cancer and clinical trial. 42 of them mention targeted therapy.
Stage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Leslie’s Patient Story
Leslie was active and teaching fitness classes when a persistent cough and worsening shortness of breath began to interfere with daily life. After repeated visits and treatments that did not help, swollen lymph nodes and increasing breathing difficulty led…
Read this storySmall Cell Lung Cancer: Nina’s Patient Story
Nina was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer in early 2014. She began standard chemotherapy and radiation and continued through about 14 months of treatment. The treatments caused side effects, including hearing loss, and eventually stopped controlling the…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Carla’s Patient Story
Carla lived with lung cancer that repeatedly developed resistance to treatment. For long periods, her symptoms were limited mainly to coughing and manageable fatigue. In January 2015, while taking third-line afatinib, she married Bud and moved to Manila to…
Read this storyStage III KRAS Lung Cancer: Bill’s Survivor Story
Bill Morris was diagnosed in 2021 with Stage IIIB KRAS G12D lung cancer after 9 months of misdiagnosis. His treatment included 10 rounds of chemotherapy, 30 rounds of radiation, and 10 months in an immunotherapy clinical trial. During the same period, his…
Read this storyLung Cancer: Mary’s Patient Story
Mary first went to her doctor in January 2021 because she was short of breath. At first, the problem seemed like it might be an infection. Her doctor still sent her for blood tests and a chest X-ray. The blood tests were clear, but the X-ray showed a shadow…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Linnea’s Patient Story
Linnea Olson was 45 when she was first diagnosed with lung cancer. Her initial diagnosis was Stage I, and she had surgery that removed most of her left lung, followed by chemotherapy. The first scan after chemotherapy showed something back in her lungs…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Jay’s Survivor Story
Jay Petri was diagnosed in 2008 and received clearer answers in fall 2009, when a good biopsy showed lung cancer with an ALK mutation. He understood that Stage IV lung cancer was probably terminal, and the diagnosis was followed by major personal loss when he…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Duane’s Patient Story
Duane Steiner was 50 when 2 nighttime fainting spells led to an emergency-room visit and a Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis in 2019. He had never smoked, so lung cancer was not something he expected. Molecular and genomic testing on the tumor later showed…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Lexi’s Patient Story
Lexi was 39 when she introduced herself as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, and someone living with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. Her symptoms had started about 2 years earlier with left shoulder pain, weight loss, and then severe pain in her…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Bill’s Patient Story
Bill was an active Park City skier, runner, and mountain biker when back pain after shoveling snow turned out to be much more than a pulled muscle. The pain lasted for months, and physical therapy did not help. Before a scheduled MRI, he became unable to walk…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Lung Cancer: Dann’s Patient Story
Dann Wonser was 49 in 2006 when an X-ray for possible broken ribs unexpectedly revealed Stage IV lung cancer. Biomarker testing showed EGFR and T790M mutations. He lived with lung cancer for 18 years before passing away on June 30, 2024. Across those years…
Read this storyStage III Lung Adenocarcinoma: Becky’s Survivor Story
Becky Manning was a 47-year-old active working mother who had never smoked when months of chest pain, cough and abnormal imaging finally led to a lung cancer diagnosis. Her symptoms were first treated as pneumonia, then other causes were considered, but she…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Lorie’s Patient Story
Lorie Young was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer in March 2026 after a 1.2-inch tumor in the lower left lung was found by chance during a routine physical. A robotic bronchoscopy biopsy and other tests confirmed the diagnosis. Because the cancer had…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Lung Cancer: Anne’s Patient Story
Anne spent 35 years as a nurse and had already cared for her father through advanced lung cancer when she began having back pain in 2019. She initially blamed the pain on triathlon training and adjusted her exercise, but it kept worsening. Over the next 8…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Jake’s Patient Story
Jake was 15 when severe migraines began in late 2012. For about 25 days, he hid the pain, took large amounts of Advil, and kept playing sports until his mother pushed for an MRI. The scan showed a golf-ball-sized tumor in his cerebellum. After brain surgery…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Kartik’s Patient Story
Kartik was 28 and a third-year internal medicine resident when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Molecular testing identified an EML4/ALK mutation, and he entered a targeted clinical trial. That treatment allowed him to continue working in medicine…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Lung Cancer: Kelsey’s Patient Story
Kelsey was 36, a mother of 4, and working as a SoulCycle manager when severe back pain began changing her life. At first, she blamed work, commuting, aging, or a pulled muscle. Then she collapsed while coaching baseball and later had to crawl to the bathroom…
Read this storyStage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Natalie’s Patient Story
Natalie was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer at 33. By the time her story reached the transplant stage, her cancer had progressed despite 2 clinical trials and 2 different chemotherapies. Her lung function had declined badly; she described…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Maggie’s Patient Story
Maggie was 60 in 2021 and expected the year to be one of the best of her life. Instead, unusual symptoms led to a Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis. She first had an ocular migraine, then leg pain that turned out to be a partial blood clot. A CT scan showed…
Read this storyStage IV ROS1 Lung Cancer: Phil’s Patient Story
Phil was an active 60-year-old looking toward retirement when a cough would not go away. At first, doctors treated it like a sinus infection or pneumonia. A CT scan was read as not cancer, and the start of COVID delayed further evaluation. After an 8-month…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Tina’s Patient Story
Tina Powell shared her experience as a Stage IV lung cancer patient on her 3-year cancerversary. The story focuses on scan anxiety, but it also gives key details about her current care. As of January 2026, she was being treated on a clinical trial at Memorial…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Jennifer’s Patient Story
Jennifer’s Stage IV lung cancer was found almost by accident. She had been in a car accident that revealed a lung spot, but she did not learn about it until 10 months later. When she later saw her primary care doctor for what she thought was a sinus…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Tina’s Patient Story
Tina Powell is living with Stage IV lung cancer and uses her Lung Cancer Strong channel to explain chemotherapy from the patient side. By November 2025, she had received 27 rounds of chemotherapy in different combinations over 3 years. She named pemetrexed…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Laura’s Patient Story
Laura, from Camden, South Carolina, was in her late 30s when she was diagnosed in May 2023 with Stage IV ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer. The earliest warning sign was a cough that lasted almost a year. It was mild and mostly in the morning, so it did…
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