LungBlog

Reports from France, Spain and Japan highlight recent research in lung cancer.

It’s time that Tennesseans join the thousands of other communities that have heeded the call to put public health first.

According to the research findings published in National Academy of Sciences Journal, the anti-cancer drug Onconase might be one of the most effective methods of treatment for mesothelioma and lung cancer caused by asbestos.

Though common wisdom has long held that secondhand smoke is dangerous, the US Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona today announced that a new comprehensive study on what he’s termed “involuntary smoking” indicates that there is no safe level of secondhand smoke and that it wreaks devastating health consequences on all those exposed to it. The number of lung cancer cases caused by secondhand smoke is rather alarming: A 2005 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 3,000 people died every year in the United States from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. Furthermore at least 60 percent of nonsmokers in the United States have evidence of exposure to secondhand smoke in their blood.

“This report once and for all ends any scientific debate about whether exposure to secondhand smoke is a cause of serious diseases like lung cancer and heart disease,” said Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Dr. Heman Chao, VP Research, will be presenting a poster at the 5th Annual Congress on Recombinant Antibodies Conference, in Zurich Switzerland. The poster entitled “L-DOS47 - a novel lung adenocarcinoma specific immuno-conjugate therapeutic”, highlights the ability of L-DOS47 to target and kill lung tumour cells in vitro and in tumour bearing mice, as well as L-DOS47’s ability to enhance the effect of weakly basic chemotherapeutics.

A recent study by scientists from the USC Keck School of Medicine and the University of Hawaii in Honolulu showed there are differences in the risk of developing lung cancer among racial and ethnic populations, and the differences were most pronounced among people who smoke fewer than a pack-and-a-half per day.

A drug for the asbestos-linked cancer mesothelioma has been blocked for widespread use by the NHS in England and Wales.

Prof. Kim Sung-hoon, a South Korean scientist, is developing a new drug which can deal with one of the nature’s most-feared killers – lung cancer – without causing serious adverse effects.

Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center found a high risk of developing a variety of cancers among first-degree relatives of lung cancer patients who never smoked cigarettes.

Penny Edwards, diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and expected to die this year, is spending the remainder of her time bringing public attention to lung cancer.