New Experimental Drug Shows 'Dramatic' Results in Lung Cancer Patients

Oct. 27, 2010— -- Evie Cogan sat in her car, waiting for the light turn to green. She grabbed the X-ray and CT documents that she had just picked up from the doctor's office moments before. Scanning the page, she saw the diagnosis: Right lung carcinoma.

Months earlier, Cogan, an assistant professor at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, had been trying to fight off a nagging cough that wouldn't let up for months. She dismissed it as bronchitis as she finished the 2005 spring semester in Basel, Switzerland, where she was teaching classes.

"You need to check out that cough," her father told her over the phone.

She finally did. After returning to the United States, she went to the doctor to get her first chest X-ray. Much to her relief, the X-ray came back negative.

Her doctors treated the cough as allergies, and put her on Claritin. But the cough worsened in the following weeks.

After another doctor's visit some time later, she received a voice mail from her physician. His voice sounded urgent and she was told to call him back as soon as possible.

The conversation is now a blur for Cogan, but she remembers the words, "fluid in the lungs."

Cogan had never smoked a cigarette in her life; she eats a healthy diet, and had a grandmother who lived past 100.

"It was surreal," said Cogan. "Everyone has secret fears that never happen, but this actually happened. It was so shocking."

And so Cogan began her journey through chemotherapy, radiation, and more chemotherapy. After all, Cogan said, she was in the battle of her life.

In November 2009, four years after her initial diagnosis, Cogan's friend called her about a medical piece she had seen on the ABC's World News, where Charlie Gibson discussed a new treatment for a specific kind of lung cancer.