Lung Cancer Case Study

During my general surgery clerkship at Detroit Medical Center Sinai-Grace Hospital in 2021, I identified an unusual presentation of lung adenocarcinoma with soft tissue metastases and proposed developing it into a formal case report.

The case

Soft tissue metastasis from lung adenocarcinoma is rare enough that isolated case reports remain clinically valuable. The presentation I encountered during clerkship was atypical in its pattern of spread, which prompted the question of whether it warranted formal documentation and publication.

What I did

I led all aspects of the publication process from identification through submission: obtaining patient consent, coordinating biopsy logistics, working with pathology on imaging acquisition, conducting a targeted literature review of similar presentations, and preparing the manuscript. The paper was peer-reviewed and published in Cureus in July 2021.

This was my first experience driving a publication independently rather than contributing to an ongoing lab project. The skills I developed in neuroscience research, particularly literature synthesis and figure preparation, transferred directly.

Publication

Tvedten E, Deak Z, Schwartz B, Rice A. An Atypical Presentation of Soft Tissue Metastasis in a Patient With Lung Cancer. Cureus. 2021;13(7):e16294.