Lung Cancer Blog

January 19, 2010, 8:31 AM CT

Childhood harms can lead to lung cancer

Adverse events in childhood have been associated with an increase in the likelihood of developing lung cancer in later life. Scientists writing in the open access journal BMC Public Health describe how the link is partly explained by raised rates of cigarette smoking in victims of childhood trauma, but note that other factors may also be to blame.

David Brown and Robert Anda, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA, worked with a team of scientists to study the effects of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual), witnessing domestic violence, parental separation, or growing up in a household where people were mentally ill, substance abusers, or sent to prison. He said, "Adverse childhood experiences were linked to an increased risk of lung cancer, especially premature death from lung cancer. Eventhough smoking behaviours, including early smoking initiation and heavy smoking, account for the greater part of this risk, other mechanisms or pathophysiologic pathways appears to be involved".

Adverse event information was collected from 17,337 people between 1995 and 1997. Brown and colleagues followed up on the medical records of these same people to study lung cancer rates in 2005. As per Brown, "In comparison to those who claimed no childhood trauma, people who experienced six or more traumas were about three times more likely to have lung cancer, identified either through hospitalization records or mortality records. Of the people who developed, or died of, lung cancer, those with six or more adverse events in childhood were roughly 13 years younger at presentation than those with none. People who had experienced more adverse events in childhood showed more smoking behaviors"......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

January 6, 2010, 4:29 PM CT

Coal from mass extinction era linked to lung cancer mystery

The volcanic eruptions thought responsible for Earth's largest mass extinction which killed more than 70 percent of plants and animals 250 million years ago is still taking lives today. That's the conclusion of a newly released study showing, for the first time, that the high silica content of coal in one region of China appears to be interacting with volatile substances in the coal to cause uncommonly high rates of lung cancer. The study, which helps solve this cancer mystery, appears in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly publication.

David Large and his colleagues note that parts of China's Xuan Wei County in Yunnan Province have the world's highest occurence rate of lung cancer in nonsmoking women 20 times higher than the rest of China. Women in the region heat their homes and cook on open coal-burning stoves that are not vented to the outside. Researchers think that indoor emissions from burning coal cause cancer, but are unclear why the lung cancer rates in this region are so much higher than other areas. Earlier studies show a strong link between certain volatile substances, called PAHs, in coal smoke and lung cancer in the region.

The researchers observed that coal used in parts of Xuan Wei County had about 10 times more silica, a suspected carcinogen, than U.S. coal. Silica may work in conjunction with PAHs to make the coal more carcinogenic, they indicate. The researchers also observed that this high-silica coal was formed 250 million years ago, at a time when massive volcanic eruptions worked to deposit silica in the peat that formed Xuan Wei's coal......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

December 8, 2009, 8:41 AM CT

Destruction of a tumor suppressor

Scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine and his colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern and Case Western University have determined how the protein Mdm2, which is elevated in late-stage cancers, disables genes that suppress the growth of tumors. The finding may lead to the development of new drugs for late stage breast cancer and other difficult to treat malignancies.

The researchers have identified a critical pathway that stimulates the production of Mdm2 causing an increase in the level of protein that bind to p53, the most common tumor suppressor, as well as other tumor suppressors, and extinguishes tumor suppression activity. The study appears in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation

Principal investigator Lindsey Mayo, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research at the IU School of Medicine and an Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center member, says that keeping Mdm2 inactive and preventing the destruction of the tumor suppressor that Mdm2 targets, is critical to preventing cancer from spreading within the body.

To explain the role of Mdm2 and how the newly identified pathways function, Dr. Mayo uses the analogy of a florescent ceiling fixture in which Mdm2 is the fluorescent bulb. "Initially, it was only known that the light was on, not how it was turned on. We discovered the wall switch and wires that connect to the light fixture to turn on the fluorescent light."........ Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

December 1, 2009, 8:30 AM CT

Lung cancer overall survival rates improving

Research released in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology sought to determine whether the survival improvement among patients with metastatic lung cancer has improved over the last two decades as reported in controlled clinical trials.

Scientists performed an analysis of over 100,000 patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) identified through the SEER database to evaluate trends in survival between 1990 and 2005 to assess the true impact of recent medical advances on these patients. Daniel Morgensztern, MD of the Washington University School of Medicine and his team evaluated over 16 years of records from those in the unselected representative patient population and found a modest, but statistically significant, improvement in overall survival rates. Specifically, one-year overall survival increased from 13.2 percent to 19.4 percent. Additionally, two-year overall survival increased from 4.5 percent to 7.8 percent.

Scientists noted the improvement in survival outcomes may reflect changes in the management of advanced NSCLC over the past two decades, including the development of new chemotherapy agents and regimens, increasing use of salvage chemotherapy and the introduction of molecularly targeted therapies.

"Eventhough the development of several new agents led to a statistically significant survival improvement between 1990 and 2005, it is sobering that the one-year survival has improved by only 6 percent during this time," says Dr. Morgensztern. "Real progress can only be achieved with a better understanding of tumor biology and development of novel therapies"......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

November 2, 2009, 8:51 AM CT

Identifying high risk people for lung cancer

A study featured in the recent issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology confirms the success of a simple questionnaire designed to identify patients at high risk of lung cancer. Initiated in 2001, the current study confirmed 18 cases of cancer of the original 430 patients who qualified as high risk after completing a five-minute questionnaire.

The study was conducted in primary care doctor offices among patients seeking care for general health issues. The evaluating doctor incorporated a simple questionnaire focused in three areas: risks, environments and genetics. Specific questions included smoking habit, occupational environments (mining, construction or railroad),subsequent exposure to chemicals and family history.

Colorado's Primary Care Partners surveyed more than 1,000 patients to evaluate their corresponding risk of lung cancer. Almost half of those surveyed qualified as high risk, and 126 of these identified underwent spinometry, a non-invasive breath measurement procedure. Of the patients with airflow obstruction, 88 underwent a full lung cancer screening. After five years, the study confirmed lung cancer in eight patients with obstructed airflow and 10 in of the patients without.

The study opened the door to mitigate late diagnosis through embedding these simple questions into the patient-doctor dialogue. "Simple by design, our initiative received widespread community support from physicians, patients and hospitals," said lead investigator Thomas Petty, MD. By providing the guidelines for pointed questions when patients are face-to-face with physicians, we can begin to identify those at risk"......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

October 1, 2009, 7:02 AM CT

Genes that increases risk of lung cancer

A recent study reported in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology determined that variations of specific genetic markers identified in prior research, or SNPs, may indicate a greater lung cancer risk in African Americans than in whites. The genes CHRNA3 and CHRNA5 may contribute to lung cancer risk due directly or through their association with nicotine dependence. Eventhough their presence is less frequent in African Americans, the risk for lung cancer appears to be greater when present.

Scientists from the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, MI and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX reviewed data on 1,508 non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) patients (38 percent of which were African American) selected from the Detroit SEER Cancer registry and 1,314 corresponding control patients matched based on age, gender and race. The three case-controlled studies examined family history of lung cancer, smoking history, and age. Using unconditional logistical regression, a type of statistical analysis, scientists identified associations between SNPs and lung cancer risk while controlling for age, sex and smoking behavior.

Despite reporting lower levels of smoking, lung cancer incidence remains higher for African Americans, than for whites, so this is an important population in which to study the role of CHRNA3 and CHRNA5 genes and risk of lung cancer......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

May 4, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Women more vulnerable to tobacco carcinogens

Women appears to be more vulnerable than men to the cancer-causing effects of smoking tobacco, as per new results reported this week at the European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology (EMCTO), Lugano, Switzerland.

Swiss scientists studied 683 patients with lung cancer who were referred to a cancer centre in St Gallen between 2000 and 2005 and found women tended to be younger when they developed the cancer, despite having smoked on average significantly less than men.

"Our findings suggest that women may have an increased susceptibility to tobacco carcinogens," report Dr Martin Frueh and his colleagues.

Dr Enriqueta Felip from Val d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, conference co-chair, notes that the results support a growing awareness that smoking presents greater risks to women than men.

"In the early 1900s lung cancer was reported to be rare in women, but since the 1960s it has progressively reached epidemic proportions, becoming the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States," Dr Felip said.

"Lung cancer is not only a man's disease, but women tend to be much more aware of other cancers, such as breast cancer," she said. "Several case-control studies seem to suggest that women are more vulnerable to tobacco carcinogens than men"......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

April 13, 2009, 1:25 PM CT

Racial disparities in the treatment of lung cancer

Black patients suffering from lung cancer are less likely to receive recommended chemotherapy and surgery than white patients with lung cancer, a disparity that shows no signs of lessening. That is the conclusion of a newly released study reported in the May 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's findings indicate that efforts are needed to provide appropriate therapys for black patients and to educate them about the value of those therapys.

Scientists led by Dale Hardy, Ph.D., of the University of Texas School of Public Health analyzed data from 83,101 patients 65 years old or older who were diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer, between 1991 and 2002. They looked for racial differences in therapy, the first attempt to address the changes in receipt of therapy over time for this disease.

The scientists observed that for patients with early lung cancer, blacks were 37 percent less likely than whites to receive recommended surgery and 42 percent less likely to receive recommended chemotherapy. For patients with later stage of the disease, blacks were 57 percent less likely to receive recommended chemotherapy than whites. Older patients, women, and those with lower socioeconomic status also experienced greater disparities in receiving therapy......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

January 6, 2009, 9:07 PM CT

Controlling indoor radiation to improve lung cancer risk

About 1100 people each year die in the UK from lung cancer correlation to indoor radon, but current government protection policies focus mainly on the small number of homes with high radon levels and neglect the 95% of radon related deaths caused by lower levels of radon, as per a research studypublished on bmj.com today.

The authors argue that installing basic and cheap measures to prevent radon in all new homes would be more cost-effective and have greater potential for reducing lung cancer deaths caused by radon, and UK Building Regulations should be amended to enforce this.

Radon in the home is a natural air pollutant produced by the decay of uranium in the ground. Radon gas seeps into buildings through cracks and holes in the foundations and when it decays it produces particles that can enter the lungs and expose them to damaging radiation.

At present, government policies in the UK concentrate on searching for homes with high levels of radon and encouraging homeowners to take remedial action at their own expense.

Professor Alastair Gray, Professor Sarah Darby and other colleagues from the University of Oxford, assessed the contribution of indoor radon to lung cancer deaths in the UK, and examined the cost- effectiveness of policies to control radon exposure. They used recent evidence on the risk of lung cancer from indoor radon, based on data from 7,000 people with lung cancer and more than 21,000 people without lung cancer across Europe. They then calculated the lifetime risk of lung cancer death before and after various interventions to control radon, and the costs involved......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

October 9, 2008, 10:36 PM CT

Tobacco smuggling is killing more people than illegal drugs

Tobacco smuggling causes around 4,000 premature deaths a yearfour times the number of deaths caused by the use of all smuggled illegal drugs put togetherbut the UK government is not doing enough to tackle the problem, claim experts on bmj.com today.

Professor Robert West from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre and his colleagues argue that more smokers would quit if cigarettes cost more, but at around half the price, smuggled tobacco is keeping the prices down.

Around 21% of all tobacco smoked in the UK is smuggled into the country. If there were no smuggling, the price of legal tobacco would increase by around 12%. As per the authors, this would lead to 5-8% of smokers kicking the habit saving at least 4000 lives a year.

A reduction in tobacco smuggling would also help reduce health inequalities because low income smokers are more likely to use smuggled tobacco and they are also more likely to quit because of price increases.

While the authors acknowledge that tobacco smuggling has reduced considerably since the government 'Tackling Tobacco Smuggling' strategy was announced in 2000, they argue that more needs to be done and call for more action and resources to tackle the problem.

For example, the UK government has not followed the lead of all the other European Union countries and has failed to sign up to legally enforceable agreements with the two tobacco companies, Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International, to ensure that they tightly control and regulate distribution and stop supplying contractors involved in smuggling......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

September 16, 2008, 10:19 PM CT

Pazopanib shrinks lung cancers before surgery

Pazopanib, a new oral angiogenesis inhibitor, has demonstrated interesting activity in difficult to treat non-small-cell lung cancer, US researchers report.

In a phase II trial, 30 out of 35 patients treated with preoperative pazopanib for a minimum of two weeks saw their tumor size shrink by up to 85%.

"This is a positive result that will be explored further," said Prof. Nasser Altorki from Weil Medical College of Cornell University in New York.

"To my knowledge, no other results on the effect of angiogenesis inhibitors in early stage operable lung cancer have been published.

The results presented here with pazopanib indicate a highly active drug in this setting and further development in lung cancer is underway to fully understand the value of this drug in this disease"......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

July 16, 2008, 9:00 PM CT

Tobacco industry manipulated cigarette menthol content

Menthol cigarette brands have been rising in popularity with adolescents, and the highest use has been among younger, newer smokers. Scientists at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) explored tobacco industry manipulation of menthol levels in specific brands and found a deliberate strategy to recruit and addict young smokers by adjusting menthol to create a milder experience for the first time smoker. Menthol masks the harshness and irritation of cigarettes, allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes. These milder products were then marketed to the youngest potential consumers.

The paper, "Tobacco Industry Control of Menthol in Cigarettes and Targeting of Adolescents and Young Adults," appears in the online "First Look" section of the American Journal of Public Health in advance of publication in the September 2008 issue.

"For decades, the tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers," said Howard Koh, Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice at HSPH and a co-author of the paper.

Lead author Jennifer M. Kreslake, a research analyst, and his colleagues from the Tobacco Control Research Program at HSPH evaluated internal tobacco industry documents on menthol product development, conducted laboratory tests to measure menthol content in U.S. brands, examined market research reports and drew data from the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual nationally representative survey among U.S. residents aged 12 years and older. The industry documents revealed that tobacco companies researched how controlling menthol levels could increase brand sales among specific groups. The companies determined that products with higher menthol levels and stronger perceived menthol sensation suited long-term smokers of menthol cigarettes while milder brands with lower menthol levels appealed to younger smokers......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 9:45 PM CT

Perceived access to cigarettes predicts youth smoking

Washington, DC Kids who see cigarettes as easily accessible are more likely to end up as regular smokers, especially if they have friends who smoke, as per a new report reported in the current issue of Annals of Family Medicine The study, funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, could be valuable to smoking intervention efforts by allowing health professionals to identify and target high-risk children.

We observed that if you get kids to answer just two simple questions would it be easy for you to get a cigarette? and do you have friends who smoke? you can identify those who are at high risk of becoming regular smokers, said lead author, Chyke Doubeni, PhD, with the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Saying yes to either should raise a red flag and prompt doctors and others to talk with parents and kids about how to avoid smoking.

The scientists interviewed 1,195 sixth-graders in Massachusetts who had never before puffed on a cigarette or who smoked less than once a week. They followed them from January 2002 to February 2006.

Over the four years of the study, 177 students tried out smoking and 109 became regular smokers. All those who picked up the habit either agreed with the statement it would be easy for me to get a cigarette or acknowledged having a friend who smoked or both. The scientists also observed that perceptions of accessibility and prevalence of peer smokers both intensified as the kids got older. At the start of the study, 21 percent of the participating students perceived cigarettes as easily accessible and only 9 percent had friends that smoked. By the fourth year of the study period, 50 percent perceived easy access to cigarettes and 32 percent had friends who smoked. Also, the study observed that as they get older, kids appear to become more aware of which stores sell cigarettes......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

May 26, 2008, 8:08 PM CT

Genetic mutation and risk of lung cancer

Carriers of a common genetic disorder previously associated with lung disease may have a 70-percent to 100-percent increased risk of lung cancer, as per a report in the May 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The disorder, alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency (1ATD), is one of the most common genetic conditions affecting the U.S. population and particularly those of European descent, as per background information in the article. Individuals with two copies of the associated genetic mutation often develop emphysema at an early age. However, 1ATD carriersthose with only one copy of the mutated genedo not normally have severe diseases correlation to 1ATD and may not be aware of their status. However, they may be more vulnerable to cancer-causing tobacco smoke than non-carriers.

Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., tested for 1ATD carrier status in 1,443 lung cancer patients. In addition, 797 community members without lung cancer and 902 siblings of patients with lung cancer were tested as controls. Information was gathered about all participants smoking history, demographic characteristics and family history of cancer.

A total of 13.4 percent of the patients with lung cancer and 7.8 percent of unrelated controls were 1ATD carriers. When lung cancer patients were in comparison to non-related controls, 1ATD carriers had a 70 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer than non-carriers. Comparing lung cancer patients to their cancer-free siblings, 1ATD carriers had twice the risk of developing lung cancer. The scientists estimated that 1ATD carrier status may account for 11 percent to 12 percent of the lung cancer patients enrolled in the study......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

April 2, 2008, 10:14 PM CT

Researchers ID gene linked to lung cancer

Scientists at Johns Hopkins, as part of a large, multi-institutional study, have found one gene variant that is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. The study would be reported in the April 3 issue of Nature Genetics.

The research team collected DNA from 1,154 smokers who have lung cancer and 1,137 smokers without lung cancer. Each DNA sample was analyzed at more than 300,000 points, looking for variationsknown as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs for shortbetween those with cancer and those without. They then analyzed the top 10 SNPs in an additional 5,075 DNA samples from smokers with and without lung cancer.

Two of the 10 SNPs were consistently linked to lung cancer risk and both of them are located in chromosome 15 inside a region that contains genes for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor alpha subunits 3 and 5, which already are suspected to play a role in lung cancer progression.

The research team then wondered if these genetic associations relate to nicotine dependence, and observed that the same two SNPs also are weakly linked to smoking behavior.

The power of genome-wide analysis is to look at a number of markers and a number of samples at once, which can reveal weak genetic associations in complex diseases like lung cancer. says Kimberly Doheny, Ph.D., assistant director of the Center for Inherited Disease Research at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 9:08 PM CT

New method to test for lung cancer

Scientists from Boston University School of Medicine have developed a new clinicogenomic model to accurately test for lung cancer. The model combines a specific gene expression for lung cancer as well as clinical risk factors. These findings currently appear on-line in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and the world, with more than one million deaths worldwide annually. Eighty-five to 90 percent of subjects with lung cancer in the United States are current or former smokers with 10 to 20 percent of heavy smokers developing this disease.

A prior study by the same scientists reported a gene expression biomarker capable of distinguishing cytologically normal large airway epithelial cells from smokers with and without lung cancer. However, the biomarker has limited sensitivity depending on the stage and the location of the cancer.

Studying current and former smokers undergoing bronchoscopies for suspicion of lung cancer, the scientists compared the likelihood of the subjects having lung cancer using the biomarker, the clinical risk factors and a combination of the two -- clinicogenomic model. They found patients using the clinicogenomic model had increased sensitivity, specificity, positive value and negative predictive value of their cancer in comparison to the other methods......... Posted by: Justin234      Read more         Source