Health

Dr. Harvey Pass wants to improve
detection and treatment.

A Jewish doctor has taken
his cancer detection program to Dearborn.

SHARI S. COHEN
Special to the Jewish News

D

r. Harvey Pass came to Michigan to expand his

research and treatment of lung cancer patients.
Being Jewish, he probably didn't expect his
first cancer program would be held at the Arab
Community Center for Educational and Health Services
(ACCESS) in Dearborn.
For Pass, a thoracic surgeon and director of the thoracic
oncology program at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer
Institute, coming to ACCESS is all part of his campaign to
figure out who is at highest risk for lung cancer and to
screen and test for the disease.
"In the Dearborn Arabic community, 50 percent of
the men and 30 percent of the women smoke. That corn-
pares to 25 percent of all adults in the United States.
Smokers have a 4 percent lifetime prevalence for lung
cancer and former smokers have a 2 percent prevalence,"
Pass says.
In Michigan, 59 out of every 100,000 residents are diag-
nosed with lung cancer each year and only 12 percent of
lung cancer patients survive five years. Pass hopes to
improve those statistics, using a better method for finding
pre-cancerous cells and early lung cancers, as well as trying a
new treatment called photodynamic therapy (PDT).
"With the ACCESS program, we can test a group's readi-
ness to accept this kind of screening program and find our

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how well we can get people through it. We needed to trans-
late some materials into Arabic and train staff at ACCESS.
We will provide education about lung cancer, screening and
other tests, and a smoking cessation program."
The one-year government-funded program started in
May.
Lung cancer often has no significant symptoms in its
early stages, says Pass, which is one reason it's usually not
discovered early. His goal is develop a profile of individuals
at higher risk for lung cancer, such as long-term smokers,
especially those who do poorly on breathing tests.
Chest x-rays and sputum tests can help detect lung
abnormalities, but Pass is excited about the possibilities of
new cancer detection technology, now available in Michigan
at Karmanos and the Veterans Administration Medical
Center in Detroit.
The Lung Imaging Fluorescence Endoscopy (LIFE)
device uses fluorescent light to pinpoint cancerous or pre-
cancerous lung lesions that may not be found by standard
bronchoscopy, a test used to detect lung cancer and other
serious lung diseases.
The Food and Drug Administration approved PDT in
December for treatment of late-stage lung cancer.
Previously, it was used for combating early-stage lung cancer
and certain other cancers.
In Detroit, Dr. David Fromm. chairman of the depart-
ment of surgery at Wayne State University Medical School
and surgeon-in-chief at Detroit Medical Center, pioneered