Elderly patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer are not likely to receive chemotherapy, and platinum-based doublet regimens in particular, despite their clear survival benefits, according to a study published online March 29 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Amy J. Davidoff, Ph.D., from the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and colleagues analyzed data from 21,285 patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, of whom 25.8 percent received first-line chemotherapy, with a focus on outcomes after platinum-doublet therapy (two-drug platinum-based regimens) compared with single-agent therapy.

Up to recent years, it was generally believed that bronchopleural fistulas and respiratory failure were the principal determinants of postoperative morbidity and mortality of major lung resections. It is nowadays known that these procedures are frequently complicated by postoperative pneumonia (POP). Patient undergoing lobectomy or pneumonectomy carry many risk factors of POP, because of frequent history of tobacco consumption, and possibly associated chronic bronchitis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), neoplastic disease, extrathoracic co-morbidities and poor nutritional status. Postoperative administration of morphinics may further induce hypoventilation with possibly related complications.

Radon, a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas present in residential buildings, has been found to contribute to the deaths of patients suffering from lung cancer.

Klaus Schmid of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and his co-authors say that about 1900 deaths from lung cancer per year in Germany are due to radon within residential buildings.

The authors base their assessment on the results of relevant studies, the recently published S1 guideline of the German Society for Occupational and Environmental Medicine and a current publication from the German Commission on Radiological Protection.

Doctors cut tumors out of Leisa Dargis’ brain and spine seven months ago, left one in her lung and told her to enjoy the rest of her life.

Whatever she had left.

Dargis was diagnosed Aug. 25 with stage 4, metastic lung cancer.

In laymen’s terms, that’s bad.

The cancer had spread through her body. Cutting out the last tumor would mean a 12-month recovery, and she only had 18 months to live, Dargis said the doctors told her.

Dargis cut a deal with her doctor: If she was cancer-free in six months, he would cut out that last tumor.

The Cyberknife procedure is scheduled for March 31.

So what killed her cancer?

In the UK, lung cancer is the second most common diagnosed cancer and the most common cause of cancer death accounting for more than 1 in 5 cancer-related deaths (according to Cancer Research UK). Although smoking is the single largest risk factor for lung cancer, and causes almost 90% of lung cancer deaths, around a quarter of lung cancer cases worldwide have no history of smoking.

Although you have been diagnosed with lung cancer anyway, you should eat more vegetables and fruits.

It is time that food will not only help you stop the cancer, but also to actively treat. Practitioners of alternative medicine have advocated for a long time vegetarian or macrobiotic diet for people with cancer including lung.

Now, traditional medicine is receiving increasing evidence that fruits and vegetables may be a good option for patients with lung cancer. Recent research shows that the substances contained in foods as beta carotene, can attack and destroy tumor cells and slow the growth and spread of tumors.

In a recent report, the Center for Research on Cancer, University of Hawaii in Honolulu, said the powers of plants chemotherapy slowed the progression and virulence of the cancer, prolonging the life span.

One of the most promising treatments for early stage and advanced lung cancer now is available in Beaufort County.

In collaboration with local affiliate Beaufort Memorial Hospital, Duke University physicians and scientists have begun enrolling area residents in genomic clinical trials, studies that offer lung cancer patients the opportunity to receive personalized treatment based on the individual genetic signature of their tumors.

Targeted therapies may knock the wind out of lung cancer, which can grow and spread aggressively.

The death rate for this cancer is close to 90 per cent. Every year, some 1,000 people here are diagnosed with lung cancer, with the majority in the advanced stage.

Dr Wong Seng Weng, a consultant medical oncologist and physician at The Cancer Centre in Paragon Medical Centre, said: ‘The alarming growth of many lung cancer is due to a ‘growth switch’ driving the rapid multiplication of lung cancer cells.’

This growth switch is known as the epidermal growth factor receptor.

Researchers have developed medication which lock onto the growth switch of cancer cells.

A research team at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has shown in a study that two closely related enzymes could be targets for the treatment of lung cancer. The discovery was made when the researchers blocked the production of the two enzymes in transgenic mice. This resulted in inhibition of cell growth, fewer tumours and greater survival among the mice.

A five-center collaborative study that scanned the genomes of thousands of “never smokers” diagnosed with lung cancer as well as healthy never smokers has found a gene they say could be responsible for a significant number of those cancers.

In the March 22 on line issue of Lancet Oncology, the researchers reported that about 30 percent of patients who never smoked and who developed lung cancer had the same uncommon variant, or allele, residing in a gene known as GPC5. The research was co-led by scientists at the Mayo Clinic campus in Minnesota, Harvard University, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Researchers found in laboratory studies that this allele leads to greatly reduced GPC5 expression, compared to normal lung tissue. The finding suggests that the gene has an important tumor suppressor-like function and that insufficient function can promote lung cancer development.