Lung Cancer
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.
CT Screening for Lung Cancer: Update 2007
Screening is the pursuit of the early diagnosis of cancer before symptoms occur. The purpose of early diagnosis is to provide early treatment, which potentially prevents death from the cancer. The usefulness of screening depends on how early the cancer can be diagnosed and how many deaths can be prevented by early treatment as compared with later symptom-prompted diagnosis and treatment.
The goal of the Early Lung Cancer Action Project investigators was to develop an efficient methodology that would provide an ever-accumulating, continually updated body of evidence for evaluation of emerging new technologies for screening for cancer. This methodology recognizes that screening is a sequential process that starts with the pursuit of the early diagnosis of cancer followed by early treatment. It also recognizes that diagnostic research is fundamentally different from treatment research. To fully understand the current discussions on the evidence for lung cancer screening, key definitions are provided, including the differentiation between the first, baseline round of screening and all subsequent rounds of repeat screening and baseline and repeat cancers and their distribution by cell type. These definitions are critical in analyzing the results of various screening reports as they are not used by all.
Smoke, then Fire: Lung Cancer Screening Studies Under Further Scrutiny
In the January 2008 issue of The Oncologist, we reported that the authors of a controversial article on CT screening for early detection of lung cancer had not revealed their financial interests in screening software and biopsy instruments [1]. We considered these interests relevant to the message of the article, and hence decided not to make the article available as a Continuing Medical Education (CME) course [2]. It was further revealed by Paul Goldberg, editor of The Cancer Letter, that the same authors, Claudia Henschke and David Yankelevitz of Weill Cornell Medical College, had not disclosed these interests in their many previous articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Journal of the American Medical Association, and elsewhere [3].
Goldberg [4] and, independently, Gardiner Harris of The New York Times [5] reported on March 25 and March 26, 2008, respectively, that Henschke and Yankelevitz financed some of their lung cancer screening work with a $3.6 million grant from Vector, the parent company of the Liggett Group, a major cigarette manufacturer. The tobacco money was filtered through a nonprofit foundation, the Foundation for Lung Cancer Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment, that was hastily established in late 2000. Henschke, Yankelevitz, Antonio Gotto (dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and a noted cardiology researcher), and Arthur Mahon (chair of the Weill Cornell Board of Overseers) are the foundation’s officers and directors. The foundation’s support was acknowledged in a few articles published by these authors, but the origin of the money was not obvious to the journals, as recently observed by Jeffrey Drazen, the editor-in-chief of the NEJM [6]. Goldberg further documents that the authors subsequently accepted grant support from the American Cancer Society and other sources that specifically prohibit projects that receive funding from tobacco companies. In fact, the authors neither acknowledged this funding from Vector nor their foundation in the paper published by The Oncologist [7].
Viruses may play a role in lung cancer development
Papers presented at the 1st European Lung Cancer Conference, jointly organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) in Geneva, Switzerland highlight emerging evidence that common viruses may contribute to the development of lung cancer.
Experts agree that smoking is by far the most important factor that contributes to lung cancer development. But other factors can play a role in some cases.
In one report at the conference (Abstract No. 124PD; Friday 25th April, 09:50) Dr. Arash Rezazadeh and colleagues from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA, describe the results of a study on 23 lung cancer samples from patients in Kentucky.
Inhaled insulin linked to lung cancer: Pfizer
Clinical trials of the inhaled insulin product Exubera revealed an increase in the number of lung cancer patient, leading Nektar Therapeutics to end talks with potential partners to market the product, Pfizer Inc and Nektar said on Wednesday
Over the course of the clinical trials, Pfizer said 6 of the 4,740 Exubera-treated patients versus 1 of the 4,292 patients not treated with Exubera developed lung cancer. One lung cancer case was also found after Exubera reached the market.
Pfizer updated the Exubera labeling to include a warning with safety information about lung cancer cases found in patients who used Exubera, which U.S. regulators approved in January 2006.
Scientists smoke out genes behind lung cancer
Scientists have found important genetic differences between people that may help explain why some smokers get lung cancer and others do not.
Three teams from France, Iceland and the United States said on Wednesday they had pinpointed a region of the genome containing genes that can put smokers at even greater risk of contracting the killer disease.
In all three studies, nicotine appears a major culprit.
Treatment Gives Lung Cancer Patients With Inoperable Tumors Two Years or More
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA)—an interventional treatment that “cooks” and kills lung cancer tumors with heat—greatly improves survival time from primary or metastatic inoperable lung tumors, according to a study released today at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting. Of the 244 patients suffering from lung metastases (195 patients) or primary non-small cell lung cancer (49 patients), 70 percent were still alive at two years, including 72 percent for lung metastases and 64 percent for primary lung cancer. These survival results are similar to surgical results from other studies, but the interventional treatment is less invasive and has far fewer side effects and less recovery time. The researchers found that RFA often can completely destroy the primary tumor and, therefore, extend a patient’s survival and greatly improve his or her quality of life. Survival thus becomes dependent on the extent of disease elsewhere in the body.
Of the 49 patients (ages 27–85) with non-small cell primary lung cancer who were treated with RFA, 85 percent had no viable lung tumors after one year on imaging, and 77 percent had no viable lung tumors after two years, which indicates a cure. This study was conducted in tumors four centimeters in diameter or smaller, and even better results were obtained for tumors smaller than two centimeters.
Vitamin pills don’t cut lung cancer risk: study
People who take vitamin supplements are just as likely as those who don’t to develop lung cancer, and vitamin E supplements may actually slightly raise the risk, researchers said on Friday.
Their study involved 77,721 people in Washington state ages 50 to 76, tracking their use over the prior decade of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate to see if this would offer protection from lung cancer.
None of the vitamins looked at in the study was tied to a reduced risk of lung cancer. In fact, people who took high doses of vitamin E, especially smokers, had a small but statistically significant elevated risk, the researchers said.
New Approach Shows Promise as Lung Cancer Treatment
A novel radiotherapy approach has shown promise as a treatment option, and may possibly increase the cure rate, for people with early stage lung cancer who are unable to tolerate surgery, according to findings from a five-year study led by SUNY Upstate Medical University.
SUNY Upstate was among 10 institutions nationwide participating in this first prospective radiotherapy study specific to high-risk patients with early stage lung cancer. The findings were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting June 4 in Chicago.
Gene Variations Link Inflammation and Increased Lung Cancer Risk
Variations in two genes related to inflammation may be a major risk factor for developing lung cancer, according to a team of scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The effect of these genes is especially strong among heavy smokers, suggesting that the inflammatory response is important in modulating the damage caused by tobacco smoke.
Their study, published in the July 1 issue of Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, is the first to pinpoint the mechanism by which damage to the lung might trigger an overzealous inflammatory response by the immune system, leading to lung cancer.
Women survive lung cancer better than men
Elderly women with lung cancer have significantly better survival rates than men, regardless of the type of treatment, according to the results of a new.
It has not been clear if women’s survival advantage “results from better response to treatment, different tumor biology, or a longer life expectancy,” Dr. Juan P. Wisnivesky and Dr. Ethan A. Halm, from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, write in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Assessment Model Based on Medical History Gauges Lung Cancer Risk
Clinicians may be one step closer to having a critical tool in identifying which smokers are at higher risk for developing lung cancer, the deadliest of all cancers, thanks to an assessment model generated by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The prediction tool detailed in the May 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is the first designed to assign a score assessing a person’s risk for the disease. It is also the first to use standard clinical and epidemiological data easily gathered by healthcare professionals, including: smoking habit; exposure to environmental tobacco smoke; family history of cancer; hay fever; emphysema; and exposure to dust, or asbestos.
Passive smoke in workplace increases lung cancer risk
An analysis of nearly two dozen studies confirms the association between passive smoke in the workplace and an increased risk of lung cancer, according to a report in the American Journal of Public Health.
The research, led by University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist Leslie Stayner, is posted online and will appear in the March print issue of the journal.
