Posted on 04/09/2010 3:08:19 PM PDT by neverdem
Researchers may have found an easy way to detect lung cancer in its early or even pre-cancerous stages, as well as a way to reverse the start of the deadly disease with a readily available, over-the-counter drug.
"It's incredibly, incredibly exciting," said Dr. Patrick Nana-Sinkam, a lung cancer expert with the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, who was not involved with the new study. "This definitely has potential."
The minimally invasive procedure involves using a small brush to collect a smattering of cells from the windpipe (a bronchoscopy), explained study co-author Andrea Bild, an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Maybe one day, screening could be done using an even simpler nasal or sputum test, the researchers said.
Currently, there is no good way to detect lung cancer -- the number one cancer killer -- in its early stages when it's most treatable. By the time most lung cancers are diagnosed -- which usually involves an invasive examination of the lungs -- patients already have advanced malignancies. Only 15% of patients are still alive at five years, said Nana-Sinkam.
Cigarette smoking is responsible for 90% of all lung cancer cases in the United States.
Still, only 10 to 20% of smokers actually develop lung cancer, begging the question: Why do some smokers succumb to the disease and others don't.
Now genomics may have provided an answer.
Working on the theory that cigarettes harm not only the lungs but a "field of injury" extending to other areas of the respiratory tract, the study authors surmised that evidence of existing or soon-to-develop lung cancer might be available further up in the airway.
The researchers used so-called microarray genetic analysis to measure gene expression levels in the epithelial cells -- those cells lining the respiratory tract -- that they had captured with the bronchoscopy.
"We were looking at the activity of genes in the cells that we obtained from the windpipe or airways of smokers at risk for lung cancer," said study senior author Dr. Avrum Spira, a critical care physician at Boston Medical Center and associate professor of medicine, pathology and bioinformatics at Boston University School of Medicine.
It turned out that gene activity in the PI3K pathway was "off the chart" in smokers with lung cancer versus those without the disease.
"Obviously that's very exciting," Spira said. "We have identified a marker for an early risk of developing lung cancer."
And when treated with the compound myo-inositol, the gene pathway activity declined along with improvement in the troublesome lesions, the researcher noted.
"This drug inhibits the pathway that's activated in smokers. The drug is a natural compound. You can get it in health-food stores," Spira said.
"We're now in the midst of a large study to look at whether or not activity of this pathway can be used to pick those who could benefit from this as a treatment as opposed to just prevention," said Spira, who is a co-founder of Allegro Diagnostics Inc., a company that plans to market this biomarker.
The researchers also need to explore whether or not the PI3K pathway is active in non-smokers, as well as what other pathways might also trigger lung cancer.
The study findings were published in the April 7 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Airway PI3K Pathway Activation Is an Early and Reversible Event in Lung Cancer Development
awesome
Lung Cancer usually is not discovered until it is way too late. And If it spreads to other organs, turn out the lights.. its over.
In my 47 year old cousin it spread to the brain. Her first symptoms were from the brain tumor and the lung cancer was diagnosed later.
It took 6 awful months.
yes. I lost a dear friend who had quit smoking many, many years ago, but still died at 51. Very sad. I am excited about this new development.
yes. I lost a dear friend who had quit smoking many, many years ago, but still died at 51. Very sad. I am excited about this new development.
“Cigarette smoking is responsible for 90% of all lung cancer cases in the United States.
Still, only 10 to 20% of smokers actually develop lung cancer, begging the question: Why do some smokers succumb to the disease and others don’t.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. 10-20% of smokers develop lung cancer, and apparently smoking isn’t related to 10% (100 minus 90), so how are they certain that smoking causes 90% of lung cancer. Not saying that they are wrong, it just seems... off.
So 80 to 90% of people who get lung cancer do NOT smoke.
Those stats say time to look for a different cause.
The scientific profession has made themselves "cigarette dependent" for their work...It's the first question the doctor asks...and it infuriates me...It creates a STRONG bias in examination.
I’ve known people who died from lung cancer who never smoked. They were probably in that 10% that this article references. The question remains: were they exposed to 2nd hand smoke? Poor air quality in their communities? What?
Before rules were enforced to curtail workplace smoking, I worked in some places that were just awful with smoke — a Boy Scout office was one. It was located in the basement of a church with poor ventilation. When you came inside it looked like you were stepping into a fog, the smoke was so thick from my 2 co-workers.
Another really bad environment was at a newspaper. The publisher was the worst — smoked like a chimney all the time. We’d all be working together to get the paper “to bed” and the smoke was dreadful.
My aunt succumbed to emphysema attributed to her husband’s continuous smoking.
Illogical. 10-20% of smokers getting lung cancer does not equate to 80-90% of the non-smoking population getting it.
Math is not your strong point, is it?
Four year lung cancer survivor here!
I have Asthma, emphysema and then got lung cancer on top of that. But Dr. Ross of Ohio State University Cancer Hospital used a new microscopic way of operating and took 14Th of my left lung where the cancer was.
The normal way was to cut you all the way from the back to the front. But Dr. Ross’s new procedure only left me a 3 inch scar on my side and a scar about the size of a quarter where the drainage tube was.
If not for God’s blessing me, the Ohio State University Cancer Hospital and Dr. Ross, I would have died back in 2006.
So far so good. Dr. Ross did tell me that the biopsy of the part of my lung that he removed showed 3 cancer cells right next to where he cut and that even one cancer cell on the other side, the side in me, could spread the cancer again. But after four years I think I’m safe.
It will be the Asthma or Emphysema that get’s my butt.
Not quite. What he’s saying is that 10% - 20% of SMOKERS develop lung cancer and this equates to 90% of all lung cancers.
It also implies that many different cancers, in the mouth, throat and windpipe, can also develop in association with smoking.
Will this test be allowed under Obamacare for the average older citizen?
So, we fix smoking problems, everyone smokes again and the government gets more tax revenue.
"Most men over 80 have had or currently have some form of prostate cancer."
I guess your chances of living over 80 are better if you have prostate cancer. The other group, 5 out of 6 men who don't get it don't fare as well. - Tom
Silly me, that’s supposed to read 1/4th of my left lung.
Good news.
Not sure I care for the idea of them calling inositol a “drug”, though.
What’s next? Will we need a prescription for that dangerous dextrose stuff?
Do you remember LadyInRed ? A FReeper that passed away a few years ago ?
I never got to know her that well. But it was so sad when we lost her. it is sad when we lose any FReeper
Ten to twenty percent of smokers get lung cancer. Let’s just make it simple and say ten percent.
So, 1/10 of smokers develop lung cancer, meaning that 9/10 do not. This strictly deals with the subset of smokers.
Now, on to the subset of lung cancer cases. Ten percent of lung cancer cases are in nonsmokers. Ninety percent of lung cancer cases are in smokers.
This tells us that smokers who develop lung cancer, with a frequency of one in ten, represent 90% of lung cancer cases. That tenth of the smaller subset of smokers who develop the disease represent nine tenths of the larger subset, of people who develop the disease.
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