An estimated 10% of all lung cancer cases are not caused by smoking but by radon, a naturally occurring gas, Ohio State University oncologist Dr. David Carbone told the Mount Vernon News.
One of his patients at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Annie Cacciato, was diagnosed seven years ago with lung cancer even though she never smoked, the physician said.
“She found out after she was diagnosed that the building where she worked for 20 years had a super high level of radon,” Carbone said.
Ohio is one of the states with high levels of radon, said Carbone.
According to Knox Public Health's website, some homes in the county have tested 50 times higher than normal.
The Ohio legislature recently passed legislation called the Annie Cacciato Act with the goal of raising awareness of the dangers of radon by naming January Radiation Awareness Month.
Detection is easier during cold months because houses are closed up due to the weather, KPH said.
Carbone and Cacciato met with Gov. Mike DeWine and legislative leaders.
“One of the things we suggested was potentially subsidies for lower income families to be able afford remediation in Ohio,” for radon.
Remediation involves sealing the house from radon seeping up from the basement and also ventilating basements, the physician said.
“My last house was in Tennessee, and my current house in Columbus,” he said. “Both of them had high radon levels when I bought them.”
Remediation can involve drilling through the concrete floor of the basement down to the gravel underneath the floor, said Carbone.
“They put a pipe in there and an electric fan like a vacuum cleaner that pulls air out out from underneath the floor of your house and blows it outside,” he said.
Although those subsidies have not yet been approved in Ohio, Carbone suggests that homeowners start by having their homes tested for radon.
Test kits can be obtained from the state at no cost.
“There are commercial vendors who will do potentially more accurate measurements,” Carbone said.
The five-year survival rate for lung cancer has doubled in recent decades but it is still only at 22% said Carbone.
"We're making progress in the treatment," he said. "But it's better not to get it at all."
