Chugai (Roche) has filed a submission in Japan for the approval of Avastin (bevacizumab) for the additional indication of non-small cell lung cancer.

DEAKIN University researchers have developed a new system to improve early detection of lung cancer. 

The deadly disease is usually discovered by evaluation of  CT and MRI scans but a new automated system developed by Dr Abbas Kouzani and Alycia Lee evaluates the scans for radiologists with a higher level of accuracy than the human eye.

While more than 70 per cent of women survive at least 10 years with breast cancer – and testicular, melanoma and Hodgkin’s disease have 80 per cent 10-year survival rates, only 5 per cent of those with lung, pancreatic or oesophageal cancer survive that long.

Mr Kumar said: “In these three cancers there has been a degree of defeatism. Researchers have said they are not sure they can improve survival so we won’t try. We say there is progress we can make.”

The cancers were often diagnosed late because symptoms were often difficult to distinguish from those due to trivial causes and the organs were deep within the body.

Lung cancer is the second commonest cancer (after breast cancer) and has the highest toll at 34,000 deaths a year. Yet the charity spent £13m on research into lung cancer, less than a third of the £45mn spent on breast cancer research.

A DAILY oral tablet works just as well as chemotherapy in first-line treatment for advanced lung cancer patients who are Asian and non-smokers, recent studies have revealed.

Previously, the pill Iressa was already known to work on Asians, women and non-smokers afflicted with a type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma, and whose disease had progressed despite chemotherapy.

 Tobacco kills more than 400,000 Americans each year, more than alcohol, heroin, homicide, car accidents and AIDS combined.Each day, about 4,000 children under age 18 smoke for the first time, and more than 2,000 become new daily smokers.

One-quarter of 12- to 13-year-olds who smoke as few as two or three cigarettes per day become addicted in two weeks.

Every puff of a cigarette has more than 4,000 different chemicals, including ammonia, arsenic, cyanide, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide.

“Our action today ensures that tobacco companies may not wrap their misleading tar and nicotine ratings in a cloak of government sponsorship,” said Commissioner Jon Leibowitz. “Simply put, the FTC will not be a smoke screen for tobacco companies’ shameful marketing practices.”

The incidence and mortality fell for three most common cancers among men — lung, colorectal and prostate — and for the two most common cancers among women — breast and colorectal. Overall, incidence rates for all cancers dropped 0.8 percent per year from 1999 to 2005 for men and women combined, the report said.

But lung cancer incidence and mortality increased in 18 states, most in the Midwest or South. These states generally have not passed anti-smoking laws, such as banning in public places or increasing excise taxes on cigarettes, said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, lead author of the study at the American Cancer Society’s Epidemiology and Surveillance Research Department.

Every year about 165,000 people in the United States die from lung cancer, and about 210,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. That means more people die from lung cancer annually than from breast, prostate and colon cancer combined, says Dr. Gavin Henry, chief of thoracic surgery at St. Agnes Hospital.

While most people are aware that smoking is a primary cause of lung cancer, about 10 percent – or about 2,100 cases – of new lung cancers occurs in nonsmokers.

More than a decade since it was first pioneered, a technique that greatly reduces the trauma of lung surgery still isn’t widely used. But that finally may be starting to change, doctors say.