January 28th, 2009
Erie leads the pack, so to speak, but we don’t want to win this contest.
The 2009 Erie County Health Profile shows that Erie County’s death rate from heart disease and stroke has decreased, but the death rate from cancer, especially lung cancer, is up.
The Erie County Health Department reported that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths here, “killing more people during 2004-2006 than breast, prostate, colorectal, pancreatic and ovarian cancers combined.”
January 27th, 2009
John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.
Updike, best known for his four “Rabbit” novels, died of lung cancer at a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass., according to his longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.
January 27th, 2009
To determine the optimal approach to delineating patient-specific internal gross target volumes (IGTV) from four-dimensional (4-D) computed tomography (CT) image data sets used in the planning of radiation treatment for lung cancers.
January 27th, 2009
Just three weeks into the 111th Congress, United States Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)and Sam Brownback(R-KS) reintroduced the Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act of 2009, legislation authorizing a comprehensive, multi-agency research effort to reduce lung cancer’s mortality.
January 26th, 2009
ImClone Systems and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) withdrew their pending application for Erbitux to treat a type of lung cancer Friday after the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about potential differences between the product made in the U.S. and Europe.
January 26th, 2009
It May Lower Lung Cancer Risk. Moderate consumption of red wine may decrease the risk of lung cancer in men, researchers reported in the October issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. Analyzing data collected from the California Men’s Health Study, they found that each glass of red wine consumed a month correlated with a 2 percent lower lung cancer risk. Men who drank one or two glasses of red wine a day saw a 60 percent reduced lung cancer risk. There were no similar benefits for white wine, beer or liquor drinkers, though, and smokers who drank red wine still, of course, had a higher lung-cancer risk than non-smokers.
January 26th, 2009
Cancer Research UK-funded scientists have identified a new molecular marker in blood which could indicate how patients with a type of lung cancer will respond to treatment, according to research published in Clinical Cancer Research.
Researchers at the Physiological Laboratory, University of Liverpool and cancer specialists at Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology found that a molecule called SCG3 mRNA** in the bloodstream has a high association with a type of lung cancer called neuroendocrine small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
The marker could be developed for use in blood tests to see how well patients might respond to treatment for this type of lung cancer. The discovery may in future help doctors make more informed decisions about therapy or recommend that patients take part in trials to try new treatments that might be more effective for them.
January 26th, 2009
AÂ recently discovered class of molecules called microRNA regulate the gene expression changes in airway cells that occur with smoking and lung cancer researchers say.
In a study that appears in the on-line early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated that these molecules could lead to a new, relatively non-invasive biomarker for smoking-related lung diseases.
January 26th, 2009
Disparities in survival among black patients diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer are not seen when patients undergo appropriate treatment, a new study shows.
Earlier studies have shown that black patients with early-stage lung cancer have lower five-year survival rates than white patients, and this difference in outcome has been attributed to lower rates of surgery among black patients. Why that is the case remains unknown, and theories abound trying to explain it.
January 26th, 2009
A new non-invasive surgical device for eradicating inoperable lung cancer and other conditions is being showcased this week at the 45th Annual Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Meeting in San Francisco. The Novalis Tx(TM) platform from Varian Medical Systems and BrainLAB enables doctors to perform image-guided radiosurgery on tumors of the lung, as well as of the brain, spine, liver, and prostate, without making a single incision.
