WVU Cancer Institute’s mobile lung cancer screening unit, LUCAS, uses low-dose CT scans of the chest. Lung cancer screenings can reduce the mortality rate for some eligible, high-risk individuals.
It took a rolling billboard to quiet a nagging voice Lewis County resident Penny Cooley just couldn’t shake for years.
“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” the WVU Cancer Institute patient said. “Because everybody on my father’s side has died of cancer, and I smoked 21 years.”
Paul Cooley, Penny’s husband, saw the mobile sign, too. After all, it would be hard to miss a 48-foot unit equipped with state-of-the-art lung cancer screening technology.
“She looked over and saw that bus,” Paul said. “It said lung bus. And she said, ‘I want to go over there.’ So, I zipped the car around and away we went.”
The 18-wheeler’s trailer has Lung Cancer Screening Unit, LUCAS for short, in huge white and blue letters plastered over a scenic West Virginia backdrop.
“If it had not been for that bus, it would have never come to be,” Paul said. “It was all the bus. That was the first step.”
It was a crucial step when you consider more West Virginians die from lung cancer each year than from breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined. About 75 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage, making the disease more difficult to treat and cure.
With philanthropic support, the Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention and Control team built and launched, LUCAS, which travels to 42 of West Virginia’s most rural counties to provide low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screenings. In 2024, there were 1,778 lung cancer screenings done and nine lung cancers found.
Nicholas Baker, M.D., cardiothoracic surgeon at WVU Medicine United Hospital Center, read the results of Penny’s follow-up, high-dose CT scan. She was one of the nine. Penny was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2024.
“He looked at me and told me I had cancer,” Penny said. “It takes you a minute to realize it. He made me feel like he was going to make it all well. He said, ‘I can do this. I can get rid of it.’ I said, ‘Today?’”
Not that day, but, a week later, Dr. Baker performed a robotic-assisted surgical procedure to remove a suspicious spot on Penny’s lung. Three days after that, the wife, mother, and grandmother went home cancer-free.
Nicholas Baker, M.D. and Penny and Paul Cooley met just a month after Baker accepted his position with WVU Medicine as a cardiothoracic surgeon. The Cooleys credit lung cancer screening on LUCAS and Dr. Baker for giving them many more years together.
The Cooleys have four grandchildren ages 21 to 8 months old. The youngest was born not long after Penny’s surgery.
“It’s a gift from God,” she said of LUCAS. “That’s all it can be. I was meant to be here for it. I don’t know why I stopped that day.”
LUCAS can see 27 patients a day for lung cancer screening. And it’s quick. It took about as much time for Paul to get Penny across the parking lot to the unit as it did for her initial screening.
“I’ve told all of my neighbors about it,” Penny said. “I’ve told everybody I can think of. People that I know that smoke. It’s free, people. Just go get a CT scan. It’s that simple. You’re in and out in five minutes.”
Uninsured patients living in West Virginia who are age 50 and older and meet lung cancer screening eligibility requirements may receive lung cancer screening on LUCAS through the generosity of grant funding and donations that cover operational expenses as well as screening costs.
“We couldn’t do it without them,” Paul said. “The supporters and donors are the ones that make it happen for everybody. We need more of those people.”
The WVU Cancer Institute reaches underserved communities in all 55 counties with cancer prevention and control information and services. The goal is to expand LUCAS’ services to every county in West Virginia.
For more information about LUCAS, visit WVUCancer.org/LUCAS.
Individuals and businesses interested in supporting LUCAS can visit WVUCancer.org/Giving. All gifts are made through the WVU Foundation, the nonprofit organization that receives and administers private donations on behalf of the WVU and its affiliated entities.