The following story was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle on January 26th, 2012 by Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer. SAN FRANCISCO -- In a finding that could improve the survival odds for early-stage lung cancer patients, UCSF researchers determined a new molecular test can predict more accurately than current diagnostic methods which tumors are more likely to be aggressive and turn deadly. The study results, published today in the medical journal The Lancet, come from the two largest clinical trials ever conducted on the molecular genetics of lung cancer and included early-stage patients from Northern California Kaiser hospitals as well as from China. In both trial groups, a 14-gene test, which was based on developments originally made at UCSF but created by a Mountain View company, was able to accurately determine a patient's odds of death within five years of surgery by analyzing the biological makeup of the tumor. This potentially could save lives by helping patients with early-stage but "bad" disease decide after surgery to remove tumors whether to undergo additional treatment such as chemotherapy or targeted radiation, the researchers said. Jablons Dr. David Jablons, chief of UCSF's thoracic oncology program and an author of the study, called the results a breakthrough for earlier-stage patients who have tough treatment decisions to make. "It can help enhance the chance of curing more patients and this is not an insignificant problem," he said. "This is 50,000 patients in the U.S. alone or more a year and hundreds of thousands of patients a year worldwide." Most deadly cancer Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the United States as well as the world. More people die each year from lung cancer - some 160,000 people in this country alone - than from breast, colon and prostate cancers combined. One reason it's so deadly is that lung cancer is caught in the early stages in only about 30 percent of those who are diagnosed. Also, unlike other types of cancer where early diagnosis can increase survival upwards of 90 percent, as high as 45 percent of people with the earliest stage of lung cancer die within five years, despite seemingly successful surgery. "The fact of the matter is people do not do well in general, even with early-stage lung cancer," said Jablons. He said current methods of detecting and staging the disease - using scans, surgery and clinical observation - are insufficient to determine the aggressive nature of the disease. The molecular assay, developed by Mountain View's Pinpoint Genomics, analyzes the activity level of the 14 genes in preserved tissue samples as compared to levels in the normal lung. It then characterizes whether that tumor poses a high, intermediate or low risk of death for the patient. This study - which was based on tissue samples from 433 Northern California Kaiser patients and 1,006 patients from China - and found that the test very accurately predicted the likelihood of death in both groups. "There really hasn't been a tool to more clearly identify the patients who have the more difficult biology," said David Berryman, Pinpoint's chief executive officer. "The key to it is to really hone in on a specific set of genes that would be a prognosticator of progression or more aggressive disease." Ready for market Berryman said the test, which received the proper approvals last year, is commercially available but the company has been waiting until these results before moving forward with it. He said he hopes Medicare and health insurers will cover the test as those payers have with other gene-based tests. Health experts say the test is most similar to the diagnostic test Oncotype DX, which can identify the high-risk breast cancer patients who will benefit most from chemotherapy. But what the research involving the Pinpoint test doesn't yet show is whether additional therapy following surgery for lung-cancer patients actually improves survival rates for those patients. "Knowing this result will have benefit (to the patient) is the real question of course," said Stephen Van Den Eeden, research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland. Additional research is also needed to identify which chemotherapies would be most beneficial, although genetic testing to identify certain mutations that respond to specific lung cancer therapies is already available. While the studies were funded by Pinpoint and private endowments to UCSF, researchers stressed that they were conducted under strict guidelines and using blinded conditions to prevent bias. Addario Bonnie Addario, a lung cancer survivor and founder of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation in San Carlos, called the research "fabulous news" that she expects will lead to better, more targeted therapies for patients in the advent of personalized medicine. "Just a few short years ago, deciding what chemotherapy to give a patient was like throwing spaghetti at the wall," Addario said. "Now we have a much better idea which regimens to put patients on. We're at the tip of the iceberg, but it's moving fast and very exciting." Lung Cancer Statistics An estimated 226,160 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States and about 160,340 people will die of the disease. About a third of those are diagnosed in the early stages. Nearly 7 percent of people born today will be diagnosed with lung cancer during their lifetime. Lung cancer claims an estimated 1.4 million lives worldwide every year. $10.3 billion is spent in the United States each year on lung cancer treatment. The National Cancer Institute, the nation's principal agency for cancer research, invested $281.9 million in lung cancer research in 2010. That same year, it invested $300.5 million in prostate cancer and $631.2 million in breast cancer research. Sources: National Cancer Institute; World Health Organization. E-mail Victoria Colliver at vcolliver@sfchronicle.com
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This article was originally published on January 26th, 2012 in Concordiensis, the student newspaper of Union College in Schenectady, New York by Jessica Doran.
------- “Smoking kills.” It’s a typical phrase that has been ingrained in the minds of young and old people alike to denote that smoking causes lung cancer. This is very true, but it also causes people to be ignorant as to how lung cancer can affect even those who do not smoke, have never smoked or never even touched a cigarette. This is the case of Tonya Martinez-Hilton, who passed away in December after a battle with lung cancer. Lung cancer kills 160,000 people a year, and what many do not realize is that these are more lives lost than due to breast, pancreatic and colon cancer. However, the quality of care for lung cancer patients is affected because of the smoking stigma. Smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer, but shortly behind it in causes are radon exposure and genetics. Radon accumulation in a house that rises above a certain level can reek havoc on a persons lungs without them even knowing. The quality of care that is given to lung cancer patients suffers because it is assumed that they have done this to themselves. But even the effects of secondhand smoke from the previous generations can have damaging repercussions on anyone who comes into its path. The bottom line is that lung cancer is very rarely caught and stopped in the early stages. It is often not detected until the later stages, when the tumor can have metastasized into a problem that is extremely difficult to eradicate because it has spread to other parts of the body. Mike Hilton, Tonya’s husband, has made it a personal quest to not only extensively research everything about lung cancer, but to make it a goal that screening and proceedings for detecting the disease are found promptly. “My wife had a history of lung cancer, but no doctor ever asked her about it or made an effort to get anything checked out,” he said. Chest x-rays alone can detect only large masses, so by the time that is caught, the tumor has probably metastasized. Hilton hopes that CT scans become part of protocol for medical proceedings so that tumors are found early. Hilton is involved with the Bonnie Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, based in California. They focus on fundraising and grants, and have their own medical research facility. He is their East Coast representative, and has already looked into instituting a program of early lung cancer screenings at Ellis Hospital. “If we even had one program in Schenectady County, a test run of an early screening program, we could see how the numbers of lung cancers survivors would rise. Visible change could help us to spread the program,” he said. The foundation is also putting pressure on legislature, particularly the Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act, a bill that has not yet been passed but which serves to provide better guidance to medical professionals. If this money is allocated properly, more funds can be used to support new-age treatments that have shown promise in recent years. Among these, there is new, targeted chemotherapy that affects the receptors within the tumor itself to stop it from growing. In addition to other drugs and vaccines that has been shown to increase life expectancy up to 44 months. Many of these are in the later stages of FDA approval. However, above all, the future of lung cancer treatment lies in early detection and in stage one diagnosis. Hilton made it clear that he is hoping to see lung cancer treated as a manageable disease within the next few years. This is where he petitions to the Union community. There are many people on this campus involved in the pre-medical field, with a commitment to achieving true change. “If they go into the medical field, this is what they need to focus on,” Hilton said. “Your generation are the minds of the future who are going to put horrible diseases like cancer to rest for good.” 1/17/2012 Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (BJALCF) Announces 2011 Grants for Lung Cancer ResearchRead NowSAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Just two months shy of marking its 7-year anniversary, BJALCF announced today that it has awarded over $1 million in grants for 2012 Lung Cancer Research. BJALCF has made a promise to the Lung Cancer Community to fund only immediate results-oriented projects or programs promising to catalyze progress through early detection, genetic testing, drug discovery and patient-focused outcomes. Just ask any one of the BJALCF Lung Cancer survivors, family members or friends fighting for survival--or any of those who have lost someone they love way too soon to this horrific and most-underfunded #1 Cancer Killer, why results-oriented projects are of the essence? BJALCF's ultimate goal is to turn Lung Cancer into a survivable, manageable chronic disease. After rigorous review of 26 grant requests by the BJALCF Scientific Advisory Board, much-needed funding has been distributed worldwide to the brightest, most dedicated, and determined researchers in the urgent quest to extend lives. They are as follows:
For more information about the grants or to learn more about how you can participate in eradicating Lung Cancer in our lifetime, please visit www.lungcancerfoundation.org . To arrange interviews with the researchers, Bonnie J. Addario, Lung Cancer Survivor and Founder, Wells Whitney, ScD, Chair of the BJALCF Scientific Advisory Board, Scott Santarella, President and CEO, and/or our growing army of Lung Cancer Survivors, please contact Sheila Von Driska at 415.357.1278 or sheila@lungcancerfoundation.org. Your mighty pen can help. SOURCE Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Please take a few minutes and watch the video below. One of the doctors profiled in the story, David Gandara MD, is on the Medical Advisory Board of The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the molecular research being done at at UC-Davis is one of the research initiatives of ALCMI. This is some of the work that The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund is supporting with Dancing for Joan! Watch Cancer Treatment: Are Personalized Molecular Profiles in Our Future? on PBS. We need more help! Get your tickets today and come support this great cause on February 25th - come Dancing for Joan!
By Madonna Behen, HealthDay Orginally publshed on January 12, 2012 at USAToday.com. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in the world, and only about 15 percent of cases are diagnosed at an early stage, when it's most treatable. But two preliminary studies that are scheduled to be presented at a medical meeting this week suggest that scientists are moving closer to developing new screening tests that could potentially detect lung cancer in its earliest stages. In one report, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City evaluated tissue samples from healthy smokers and were able to identify precancerous changes in the cells lining the airways leading to the lungs. "We found that the earliest molecular changes related to lung cancer are present in the airway epithelium of healthy smokers who do not have any detectable microscopic abnormalities in the lung tissue," said study author Dr. Renat Shaykhiev, an assistant professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell. Shaykhiev added that the findings "may lead to the development of novel strategies to prevent lung cancer development at the very early stages, before the development of clinically detectable cancer." In the second study, researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston developed a blood test that can analyze and determine the exact genetic mutations of circulating tumor cells in a sample size as small as three cells. "We have developed an extremely sensitive test that could be able to detect mutations present in circulating tumor cells, and we are hoping that from their characterization we would be able to understand diagnostic, prognostic and predictive markers," researcher Heidi Erickson, an assistant professor of thoracic/head and neck medical oncology at MD Anderson, said in an American Association for Cancer Research news release. "By being able to collect a blood sample from a patient instead of having to do a biopsy, we'll have an opportunity to monitor the patient throughout treatment in an easier way," Erickson said in the release. One leading lung cancer researcher said the findings, while still very preliminary, are particularly relevant in light of a 2011 groundbreaking study, which showed that screening current and former heavy smokers with three annual low-dose CT scans reduced the risk of death from lung cancer by 20 percent, compared with three annual chest X-rays. "More than a quarter of patients had one or more pulmonary nodules, but 96 percent of these nodules were not cancer," said Dr. Paul Bunn, the James Dudley chair in cancer research at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, in Denver. "So what we'd like to have is some kind of test that, if you have a CT scan and a nodule is found, would help distinguish whether or not that nodule is cancerous." Bunn noted that other scientists are working on detecting early lung cancer based on proteins in the blood, as well as volatile organic compounds in breath, and that all of the research is still many years away from yielding commercially available tests. "We make advances one step at a time and these are first steps, but that's important," Bunn said. The findings were to be presented this week at a lung cancer meeting in San Diego that was jointly sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. ---- Copyright 2012 HealthDay. All Rights Reserved. Estimated Cancer Deaths in 2010
Help us change all this. On February 25th, come Dancing for Joan! Learn more and purchase tickets here. By Christine Hsu
Originally published at MedicalDaily.com on January 9th, 2012 Researchers said Monday they have identified some mutations and cellular pathway changes that can lead to lung cancer in people who have never smoked. The new study marked a significant step in the development of potential therapeutic targets for patients with lung cancer who have never smoked, according to researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute said in a released statement. They sought to identify pathways and genes in patients with lung adenocarcinoma who had never smoked by using parallel DNA and RNA sequencing. They also looked at smokers with early-stage lung cancer to determine gene mutations and pathway alterations that could have led to the development and progression of their specific lung cancer. "In the never-smoker with early-stage cancer, there are very few mutations in the genome, but when we looked at the whole transcriptome, we see differences in gene expression," said Dr. Timothy Whitsett, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow in at the institute’s Cancer and Cell Biology Division. Researchers found that never-smokers with late-stage disease had mutations Whitsett called the “classic tumor-suppressor genes” and Whitsett predicted that mutations of this gene might be a factor in late-stage lung cancer in never-smokers. Researchers also reported that these never-smokers’ tumors did not have alterations in common genes associated with lung cancer, which makes these patients ideal cases for the discovery of new mutations that may drive lung adenocarcinomas in never-smokers. Whitsett said that using whole genome sequencing and whole transcriptome sequencing to determine cancer origins "has become a way to really dive down into an individual tumor to try to understand the pathways that may be driving that tumor and identify what therapeutic interventions may be possible." The study was presented on Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research and International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer: Biology, Therapy and Personalized Medicine in San Diego. The Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund is celebrating our fifth year of lung cancer advocacy. It is highlighed by the Fifth Annual Dancing for Joan presented by Northside Hospital Cancer Care on February 25th. We are also launching our "Five Years - Five Dollars" campaign. Help us raise awareness, fight the stigma, and fund the great work being done at The Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute by donating just $5 via the button below - and share this link with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or via e-mail. Thanks for your support!
Lung cancer matters, too. Nobody deserves lung cancer. And you do not have to smoke to get it. Learn more. |
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