LungBlog

Concerned about recent reports about funding from tobacco companies casting doubt upon the objectivity of past studies, the Caring Ambassadors Lung Cancer Program urges continued focus on critical early lung cancer detection research. We urge the lung cancer community and the public at large to continue efforts to expand and expedite sound lung cancer research, and not to lose sight of the ultimate goal of finding lung cancer sufficiently early to allow for cure.”The Caring Ambassadors Lung Cancer Program is committed to improved wellness and longevity for the lung cancer community. Early lung cancer detection research is an essential component in achieving the goal of improved lung cancer survival,” said Dr. Tina M. St. John, Executive Director and Medical Director of the Caring Ambassadors Program. “By and large, health care providers, academicians, patients, and their loved ones all share this common goal.”

In the case of Henschke’s study, Henschke and her team were well aware that the money for the trial — about $3.5 million — had originated from Liggett. In fact, according to Dr. Antonio Gotto, dean of Weill Cornell, the idea for the Foundation originated at a meeting some time in the late 1990s in which Henschke, representatives from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, as well as anti-smoking activists were present. At the time, there was no national or international lung cancer screening effort in place, and the group decided that such a program was needed, and that tobacco companies should contribute funding to support the project. Liggett was the first to agree, and, to Gotto’s understanding, the company promised to convince other cigarette makers to donate as well. “We made a public announcement along with Liggett that they were making a gift to Weill Cornell to support this activity,” says Gotto, who was not involved in the study. “We made no effort to cover up the fact that the money was coming from Liggett. It is patently false that we set up the Foundation to cover up the fact that we were getting tobacco money.”

The research team, led by Wen-Chun Hung, Dean of College of Science, National Sun Yat-Sen University, and a recent doctorial graduate Mei-Ren Pan and two collaborators Hui-Chiu Chang and Lea-Yea Chuang of Kaohsiung Medical University found that NSAIDs up-regulated several anti-metastatic genes including secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC), thrombospindin-1 (TSP-1), TSP-3 and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2) in human lung cancer cells. “Our functional assay suggested that increases of SPARC and other anti-metastatic genes were important for NSAIDs to inhibit tumor invasion and metastasis” said Wen-Chun Hung. “More importantly, we elucidated the underlying mechanism and demonstrated that up-regulation of SPARC in human lung cancer cells was mediated via inhibition of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) expression and promoter de-methylation. This is the first report to show that NSAIDs may inhibit the expression of DNMTs to reverse promoter methylation and to reactivate gene transcription.”

Since 1999, Dr. Henschke has asserted that annual CT scans of smokers and former smokers would detect lung cancer when tumors are small enough to be cured, preventing as many as 80 percent of the 160,000 deaths a year from lung cancer, by far the biggest cause of cancer deaths in the United States.

Her 2006 study said that, after screening 31,567 people from seven countries, CT scans uncovered 484 lung cancers, 412 of them at a very early stage. Three years later, most of those patients were still alive, and she projected that 80 percent would be alive after 10 years and assumed that they would have died without the screens.

Critics question both her survival projections and her assumption that all would have died without screening. Indeed, most in the cancer establishment say that Dr. Henschke has yet to prove her case. CT scans have radiation risks and sometimes detect cancers that would not have progressed, leading to risky procedures like biopsies and lung surgery when not needed.

To settle the dispute, the National Cancer Institute started in 2002 the $200 million National Lung Screening Trial comparing death rates among 55,000 people randomly assigned to have CT scans or chest X-rays. Results are not expected until 2010. Dr. Henschke has asserted that allowing hundreds of thousands of people to die in the meantime is unethical.

Last week scientists from Yale working with researchers from Asuragen, Inc. announced they found a treatment that has performed well in lab mice for treating lung cancer using micro RNA (miRNA). The miRNA used in the study is called let-7.

Exposure to levels of radon gas typically found in 90 percent of American homes appears to reduce the risk of developing lung cancer by as much as 60 percent, according to a study published in the March issue of the journal Health Physics. The finding differs significantly from the results of previous case-control studies of the effects of low-level radon exposure, which have detected a slightly elevated lung cancer risk (but without statistical significance) or no risk at all.

The dean of the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health is calling it “the best shot we’ve had in 25 years” to find answers about a lung cancer that might be connected to mining taconite.

The association was then validated in patients with lung cancer. This time, they streamed through 250,000 markers across the human genome and found that cancer patients were more likely to have homozygosity in the same 16 markers.

Among both men and women, some studies pointed to a heightened risk of 30 percent for lung cancer, although this could be partly explained by higher incidence of smoking among hairdressers.

A microRNA (miRNA) molecule known as let-7 substantially reduced cancer growth in multiple mouse models of lung cancer as reported by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and Asuragen, Inc. in the journal Cell Cycle.Cancer afflicts 1.5 million people a year in the United States alone, and lung cancer is the most common and deadly form of cancer worldwide. This study indicates a direct role for a miRNA in cancer progression and introduces a new therapeutic paradigm that features the treatment of cancer with a naturally occurring small RNA.