When Heather Saler was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2003, she was determined to do something about it.A nonsmoker, she was bothered by the stigma surrounding lung cancer victims, and frustrated when looking for a coherent, national movement dedicated to funding lung cancer research, such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer.

A mother-of-two recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer has faced further heartache after cash donated by her best friend so she could go shopping and cheer herself up was stolen.

Not to be confused with the New York City heavy metal band of the same name, the “Twisted Sisters” are four siblings from the Woonsocket area whose mission is to raise awareness and money in the fight against lung cancer.

US researchers have identified 26 genes that are frequently mutated in people who develop adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer, a discovery that could further lead to individualized therapies to fight the disease.

Workers at the Fernald uranium processing plant near Cincinnati were exposed to a second, possibly more dangerous source of radon, a new study has found.  Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have identified six uranium-ore silos in the plant’s production area that they say that exposed 12 percent of the workers there to dangerously high levels of radon.  More than half of the workers at the plant would have been exposed to low levels of radon, the study said.

Among the States of India with high prevalence rate of lung cancer, Manipur stands second.

Mizoram occupies the top position.

A multi-institution team, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today reported results of the largest effort to date to chart the genetic changes involved in the most common form of lung cancer, lung adenocarcinoma. The findings should help pave the way for more individualized approaches for detecting and treating the nation’s leading cause of cancer deaths.

A study by the National Institutes of Health shows 26 genes are changed in the most common form of lung cancer.

The study immediately raised treatment hopes, but genetics-based cures can be a double-edged sword.

Imagine cancer, 2040. A 45-year-old woman who has never smoked develops lung cancer, which today kills more people than any other kind. (By then, of course, cigarettes will have gone the way of the buggy whip, and lung cancer rates will be cut in half.) She undergoes outpatient surgery, and her doctors quickly scrutinize the tumor’s genes and feed the data, along with other information from her electronic medical record, into a desktop computer that crunches out a treatment plan all but certain to work. At subsequent checkups, her blood is tested for the earliest hint of a tumor recurrence-though were such news to come, it would bring no doom and gloom. Her doctor would simply analyze a few of the cells that even the tiniest tumors shed and prescribe a suitable next round of therapy. Throughout, her busy life is barely interrupted, and her hair stays wonderfully intact.

Patients operated on by surgeons who do not routinely remove cancer from the lungs may be at a higher risk for complications, according to a study conducted by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.”Our study found that hospitals that do higher volumes of these types of surgeries have correspondingly lower mortality rates than those who do fewer of the procedures,” said Andrew Shaw, M.D., an anesthesiologist at Duke and lead investigator on the study.

“This has important implications for both patients and doctors: patients should choose a center that does these procedures often, and doctors who are only doing a few of these a year should consider either growing their practices, or focusing their attention on other, less complex, types of surgery.”