Lung Cancer
Men who eat soy may have lower lung cancer risk
Men who don’t smoke and eat a lot of soy may have a lower risk of lung cancer, according to a new study.
Soy contains isoflavones, which act similarly to the hormone estrogen, and may have anti-cancer qualities in hormone-related cancers of the breast and prostate, the researchers note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Cells in the lung have properties that suggest they may also respond to isoflavones.
Dr. Taichi Shimazu, of the National Cancer Center in Tokyo, and colleagues studied more than 36,000 Japanese men and more than 40,000 Japanese women, 45 to 74 years old and free of cancer at the start of the study.
Lung Cancer Conference Leaders Honor Paul A. Bunn Jr., M.D.
The American Association for Cancer Research and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) honored Paul A. Bunn Jr., M.D., for his leadership in lung cancer research at the first Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer conference this week. The conference, held from Jan. 11-14, 2010, drew more than 300 people from around the world. Bunn is professor of medicine and the James Dudley chair in cancer research at the University of Colorado, Denver.
“Dr. Bunn has been an inspiration to physicians and scientists working in the field of lung cancer. He deserves this award for everything that he has contributed to this important field past, present and future,” said conference co-chairperson Roy Herbst, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the section of thoracic medical oncology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Conference co-chairperson David Carbone, M.D., Ph.D., Harold L. Moses chair in cancer research and director of the Specialized Program of Research Excellence in Lung Cancer at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, concurred.
A new mouse could help understand how some lung cancer cells evade drug treatment
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide and lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type. Many cases of lung adenocarcinoma are attributed to a mutation in a gene for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Lung cancer with changes in EGFR is initially treatable with a family of chemotherapeutic agents called tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as gefitinib and erlotinib. However, patients often develop resistance to these drugs through the acquisition of additional changes or secondary mutations that allow cancer cells to evade treatment.
Some secondary mutations to the EGFR gene that allow lung cancer cells to survive in the presence of current chemotherapy are known. These secondary changes are now the focus of targeted efforts to create drugs to specifically interfere with the mutated form of the protein. Unfortunately, in 40% of the cases in which patients become resistant to therapy, the molecular events that confer this resistance are not known. Without knowing the changes that sustain the survival of these cells it remains impossible to specifically and effectively target them with anti-cancer drugs.
Scientists now describe a mouse model of lung cancer that develops resistance to TKI drugs in at least some of the same ways that humans do. Lung cancer occurs in these mice due to a mutation in EGFR that is the same as the mutation that underlies many human lung adenocarcinomas. Some of the defined secondary changes to EGFR, which are known to confer drug resistance in humans, also occur in these mice. But most of these drug resistant mice bear tumors that do not contain known mutations. This important similarity to the human situation suggests that this mouse model might help identify the currently unknown mutations that make lung cancer cells resistant to therapy.
Tiny RNA has big impact on lung cancer tumors
Researchers from Yale University and Mirna Therapeutics, Inc., reversed the growth of lung tumors in mice using a naturally occurring tumor suppressor microRNA. The study reveals that a tiny bit of RNA may one day play a big role in cancer treatment, and provides hope for future patients battling one of the most prevalent and difficult to treat cancers.
“This is the first time anybody has shown a positive effect of microRNAs in shrinking lung cancer,” said Frank Slack, Ph.D., co-senior author of the paper, researcher at the Yale Cancer Center and professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology.
The tumors in mice with non-small cell lung cancer shrank after the Yale team delivered an intranasal dose containing a type of micro-RNA called let-7, the authors reported in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Oncogene. MicroRNAs are small bits of genetic material most often associated with transmission of information encoded in DNA. However in the past decade microRNAs have been shown to play crucial roles in gene regulation and/or gene silencing
Molecule Plays Early Role In Nonsmoking Lung Cancer
The cause of lung cancer in never-smokers is poorly understood, but a study led by investigators at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and at the National Cancer Institute has identified a molecule believed to play an early and important role in its development.
The findings, published online recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to improved therapy for lung cancer in both never-smokers and smokers, including those with tumors resistant to targeted drugs such as gefitinib.
The study examined lung tumors from people who had never smoked and found high levels of a molecule called miR-21. The levels were even higher in tumors that had mutations in a gene called EGFR, a common feature of lung cancer in never-smokers.
Common Cold Virus Efficiently Delivers Corrected Gene to Cystic Fibrosis Cells
Scientists have worked for 20 years to perfect gene therapy for the treatment of cystic fibrosis, which causes the body to produce dehydrated, thicker-than-normal mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life threatening infections.
Now University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists have found what may be the most efficient way to deliver a corrected gene to lung cells collected from cystic fibrosis patients. They also showed that it may take this high level of efficiency for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients to see any benefit from gene therapy.
Using parainfluenza virus, one of the viruses that causes common colds, the UNC scientists found that delivery of a corrected version of the CFTR gene to 25 percent of cells grown in a tissue culture model that resembles the lining of the human airways was sufficient to restore normal function back to the tissue.
Cancer “culprits” in tobacco smoke revealed
Scientists have detected two substances in tobacco smoke that directly cause lung cancer, and they said on Sunday the finding may help one day predict which smokers will develop the disease.
They said people with high concentrations in their urine of a nicotine byproduct called NNAL had double the risk of developing lung cancer compared to smokers with lower NNAL concentrations in their urine.
And smokers who had high urine levels of both NNAL and another nicotine by-product called cotinine had more than eight times the risk of lung cancer compared to smokers with the lowest concentrations of these two compounds.
Experts identify gene variants linked to lung cancer
Researchers in China and the United States have identified mutations of two genes which appear to make ethnic Chinese more susceptible to lung cancer, they wrote in the journal Cancer.
Their finding involves two genes, ABCB1 and ABCC1, which were previously thought to be linked to eliminating carcinogens from the lungs and protecting them against inhaled toxins.
In their study, the researchers analyzed the genes of 500 patients with lung cancer and 517 cancer-free participants in southeastern China.
Iressa Proves Just as Effective as Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer
Gefitinib, also known as Iressa, the once-promising targeted therapy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, has proven as effective as chemotherapy as a second-line therapy for the disease with far fewer side effects, according to an international Phase III clinical trial, led by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
However, in contrast to earlier Iressa findings, the study showed that there was no additional survival benefit for patients who expressed an elevated level of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation.
The Iressa in Non-small cell lung cancer Trial Evaluating REsponse and Survival versus Taxotere (INTERST) study, published today in The Lancet, represents a paradigm shift for the treatment of the disease, according to lead author Edward S. Kim, M.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology. It marks the first time in lung cancer that an oral pill has proven as effective as chemotherapy in a head-to-head trial.
Genetic region linked to a 5 times higher lung cancer risk
A narrow region on chromosome 15 contains genetic variations strongly associated with familial lung cancer, says a study conducted by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The researchers found a more than five times higher risk of lung cancer for people who have both a family history of the disease and these genetic variations. The risk was not affected by whether the study participants smoked or didn’t smoke.
Published in the Sept. 13 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, this study is the fourth since April 2008 to implicate this genetic region in the development of lung cancer, and it strengthens the possibility that testing for variations in this region could become a valuable way to warn individuals of their higher risk.
Chest Surgeons Propose Measures for Indicating Quality of Lung Surgery
Even though 30,000 patients in the United States undergo lung surgery each year, no standard criteria exist to measure the quality of their care. In the current issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Mayo Clinic surgeons have proposed a system of lung surgery quality indicators for surgeons and the public as a method to demonstrate best practices for obtaining positive patient outcomes.
Death rates following surgery are frequently reported. However, because they aren’t adjusted for factors such as patient age and disease severity, they don’t tell the whole story. To overcome this lack of risk adjustment in death rate data, the Mayo Clinic team proposed patient-centered processes that should occur prior to, during and after surgery to assure the likelihood of best surgical outcomes.
“There are certain processes that we can measure and report that clearly indicate whether patients have received high-quality care around the time of their lung operation,” explains Stephen Cassivi, M.D., Mayo Clinic thoracic surgeon and lead study author.
Study examines lung cancer among lifelong nonsmokers
A new American Cancer Society study sheds light on the ten to fifteen percent of lung cancers that are caused by factors other than tobacco smoking. The study analyzed data on lung cancer occurrence among lifelong nonsmokers in North America, Europe, and Asia and found that lung cancer death rates among never-smokers are highest among men, African Americans, and Asians residing in Asia. The review, the largest to date of lifelong nonsmokers, also suggests that the death rates among never-smokers have remained stable over the past several decades. It appears in the September issue of PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science.
While the great majority of lung cancers are related to smoking, approximately 16,000 to 24,000 lung cancer deaths each year are due to other factors. For comparison, if lung cancers not caused by smoking were considered a separate category, it would rank among the seven to nine most common fatal cancers in the U.S. The researchers say as the number of never-smokers in the U.S. and other developed countries is increasing, this is a subject of particular interest and importance.
To examine the issue, researchers led by Michael J. Thun, M.D. pooled data on lung cancer incidence and death rates among self-reported never-smokers from 13 large cohort studies based in North America, Europe, and Asia that spanned the time period from 1960 to 2004. The pooled data represented hundreds of thousands of individuals (over 630,000 for the incidence data and 1.8 million for the mortality data). The researchers also abstracted data for women from 22 cancer registries in 10 countries in time periods and regions where the smoking prevalence among women was known to be low.
Lung cancer no more common in women smokers: study
Women who smoke are no more likely than men to get lung cancer but, among non-smokers, women appear to have a higher risk than men, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
Women who had never smoked were 1.3 times more likely to develop lung cancer than men who had never smoked, Dr. Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues found.
“We noted slightly higher age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer in women who had never smoked than in men who had never smoked,” Freedman and colleagues wrote in the journal Lancet Oncology.
Blood test may detect lung cancer in early stages
A simple blood test may be able to detect lung cancer in its early stages, which would represent a promising strategy to improve survival rates, researchers said on Sunday.
Lung cancer survival rates are poor, mainly because the disease, which kills 1.3 million people globally a year, is often diagnosed in advanced stages.
OHSU Cancer Institute researchers pinpoint how smoking causes cancer
Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute researchers have pinpointed the protein that can lead to genetic changes that cause lung cancer.
The research will be published Tuesday, May 12, in the British Journal of Cancer.
Researchers discovered that the production of a protein called FANCD2 is slowed when lung cells are exposed to cigarette smoke. Low levels of FANCD2 leads to DNA damage, triggering cancer. Cigarette smoke curbs the production of ‘caretaker’ proteins, like FANCD2, which normally prevent cancer by fixing damages in DNA and causing faulty cells to commit suicide.
