Rockford doctor works with her students to find quicker ways to detect lung cancer

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, and one Rockford doctor wants to help find a way to recognize lung cancer earlier in patients.

Dr. Neelu Puri leads lung cancer research at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford. She said catching lung cancer early is crucial because the survival rate of late-stage lung cancer is about 5%.

“People, by the time they know they have lung cancer, they are possibly in stage four lung cancer,” said Dr. Puri. “But if we do outreach work and get them screened, then we can detect them very early.”

Dr. Puri has included her students in the fight to identify lung cancer quicker.

“We work on signs in the blood and in the tumor which are called biomarkers,” said Dr. Puri. “What we do is we study these protein biomarkers, and we study if we can develop a blood test for early detection of lung cancer.”

Until a blood test is developed, they promote screening using a special type of CT scan.

“So one of the things that Puri’s been doing around the area has been going to these booths and these fairs and been just talking about Lotus CT scans as well as any cancer prevention techniques to try to decrease the number of deaths especially in the Winnebago area but also in northern Illinois as a whole,” said one of her students, Dalton Rogers.

The director of communications at the college said Puri takes any chance to educate more people about lung cancer.

“Any opportunity that she gets, she’ll set up a booth,” said Carrie Foust. “She’ll put out brochures. She’ll talk to people at baseball games and health fairs. Anywhere people will let her set up a booth and talk to the public and let them know what the risks are for lung cancer.”

When she isn’t out in the community promoting lung cancer awareness, Dr.Puri is in the classroom or in the lab working with students.

“She’s teaching new students how to be better doctors,” said college student Rachel Campoli. How to care about their community and I think on all three fronts she’s just constantly pushing, pushing the boundary of what a woman can do in medicine and I think that’s pretty incredible.”

The doctor and college professor said students need to lead the way in research.

“I think students are very important because they are the next generation of scientists,” said Dr. Puri. “They are the ones who are going to light the future of research. They are the torch.”

For more information about the Northern Illinois Lung Cancer Screening Project and Dr. Puri, visit the project’s Facebook page.