Why do ex-smokers continue to have a higher 'lung' cancer risk than non-smokers?

BBC News: Even years after quitting, former smokers still have a raised risk of lung cancer - and now scientists believe they know why.

Smoking appears to permanently alter the activity of key genes, even though most cigarette damage is repaired over time.

Canadian researchers, writing in the journal BMC Genomics, looked at lung tissue of 24 people.

UK experts stressed that giving up still delivers massive health benefits. It has been shown that the poisons in cigarette smoke can alter the activity of genes.

If you give up smoking, your risk of lung cancer falls significantly, but former smokers continue to have a slightly higher risk of lung cancer compared with someone who has never smoked.

The latest study from the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre in Vancouver suggests that some of these changes might be permanent.

They studied cell samples from the lungs of eight current smokers, 12 former smokers and four people who had never smoked.

Some gene changes appeared to be relatively short-lived, reversing after they had quit the habit for a year or more.

Read more of this story….

Genetic tests to predict early stages of lung cancer

Medicalnewstoday.com: US scientists have developed a genetic test to predict early stages of lung cancer by looking for genetic changes in the cells of a smoker's airways. The results of the study are published online in the journal Nature Medicine.

Dr. Avrum Spira from the Pulmonary Center at Boston University, Massachusetts, and fellow researchers took tissue samples from smokers who were tested for lung cancer and compared the genetic structure of those who were given the all clear against those who went on to develop the disease.

Cigarette smoke passes into the lungs via the airways, and creates a "field of injury" as the scientists called it. They had a hunch that this field of injury might give genetic clues for early stage lung cancer.

In effect this is what they found. First, in a preliminary study they identified an 80-gene biomarker that can distinguish smokers with and without lung cancer.They did this by comparing the genes from large-airway cells taken during bronchoscopy examinations of 77 smokers suspected of having lung cancer and comparing them to a commercially available gene profiler, in this case the Affymetrix HG-U133A microarray. This holds the gene pattern for 14,500 well-characterized human genes and is used by scientists to explore human biology and disease.

Read more of this story…

Why do non-smokers develop lung cancer?

San Francisco Chronicle – Every year roughly 20,000 people who have never touched a cigarette are diagnosed with lung cancer -- and women are particularly at risk, for reasons no one understands.

Recent research has suggested that women who don't smoke are two to three times more likely than nonsmoking men to develop lung cancer.

"People talk about secondhand smoke, but there are other environmental pollutants," said Dr. Heather Wakelee, an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. "We just don't understand it."
Research also suggests that women may be more vulnerable than men to the carcinogenic effects of smoking -- in some studies, women who smoked have been shown to be roughly twice as likely to develop lung cancer as men who smoked.

Wakelee, who is set to publish a new study on nonsmoking women and lung cancer in the next few months, said the research is too new to come up with a reason for why nonsmokers get cancer, and why women are especially at risk. Almost all studies have looked at patient records -- not actual patients -- which don't include all of the environmental factors, such as exposure to airborne pollutants, that could lead to lung cancer.

Read more…

‘Breakthrough’ in lung cancer diagnosis!

A new method, which could be considered as a breakthrough in lung cancer diagnosis, is developed by a team of French researchers. Scientists have developed a blood test that could detect lung cancer at an early stage and this test could prove to be a valuable tool in saving thousands of lung cancer patients. Cancer cells produce a few proteins in larger quantities than the normal cells. Scientists believe that by identifying the presence of these proteins produced by cancer cells in blood, it is possible to detect cancer even before visible symptoms arise. This test will enable health professionals to easily differentiate lung cancer from other lung diseases and help them to start treating the disease at its early stage, ultimately increasing the patient’s chances of survival.

Proper diagnosis is very important in the fight against cancer and early detection of cancer could help doctors in effectively treating the disease. Cancers detected at its early stages are easily curable. The maximum survival period of patients who are suffering from lung cancer, the most lethal form of all cancers, is only 5 years. Only 16% of patients live more than five years and this low survival rate of lung cancer is attributed to the inability to diagnose the disease at its early stage. Active and passive smoking is considered to be the main cause of this disease. People who are over 50 are considered to be more prone to this disease.

Scientists believe if this new development in cancer diagnosis is successfully tested then it could make a big difference in lung cancer detection and its treatment.


Source - The Herald - Web issue

New Zealand researchers discover a new drug to fight lung cancer

Lung cancer, the most lethal forms of all cancer, which causes nearly 3 million deaths every year worldwide, can be controlled with a new experimental drug discovered in New Zealand, which could increase the lifespan of lung cancer patients’ significantly. The drug was discovered by researchers in New Zealand and developed by Antisoma a U.K based biotechnology company with support from Cancer Research UK.

Smoking, asbestos and radon gas are the major contributors of lung Cancer in humans. A recent study revealed that people living in areas close to heavy industries are at a higher risk to this. This new drug belongs to a class of compounds called vascular disrupting agents, which selectively destroy blood vessels that help in the growth of tumors.

Although this drug is not a cure for the disease, its discovery can considered as a step that takes us closer to finding a solution to lung cancer.

Read more of this story...