Rob Densen from the Huffington Post, August 30, 2011

Our late refrigerator was a full-length side by side, with beveled wood panels on the doors which we got to match the cabinetry when we remodeled the kitchen. When it came to a replacement, I had relented on figuring out how to match the cabinets, but I was insistent on a side by side. My wife preferred the fridge-on-top-with-French-doors-freezer-on-the-bottom arrangement that is all the rage.

For the record, my preference for a side by side wasn’t just a matter of style. With a reconstructed knee, a frozen shoulder, and two bulging discs in my back wrapped around a giant lazy streak, I generally go out of my way to avoid any sort of bending motion. It’s not impossible, just a little uncomfortable.

In the week we dilly-dallied, the food was melting in the fridge — and my wife was on the way.

The next night I returned home and all was fine. “I ordered the top/down model. It will be here Thursday.”

She had been to her Pilates class earlier in the day and, in the midst of a long discussion with her instructor, it all became clear. “I realized,” she said, “that this will be my last refrigerator.”

A Life Measured in Kilowatt Hours

I couldn’t argue with her. Not with the logic and, most regrettably, not with the truthfulness of that statement. My wife has Stage IV lung cancer. Given the arc of the disease and the quality of refrigerator design and construction, it is highly probable that this will be her last refrigerator. The question is, are we also on our last washing machine, hairdryer or big screen TV?

by Linda Fugate, PhD

Some smokers get lung cancer and others do not. The reason for this may involve bacterial infection, according to a review by Dr. Seyed Javad Moghaddam of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, and colleagues at three other research institutions. Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is the main culprit, they reported. This pathogen is similar to Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), which is a common cause of meningitis, pneumonia, and ear infections in children who have not been vaccinated against it. The nontypeable variety is missing the polysaccharide capsule present in Hib and other, less common varieties.

Study found drug tripled survival — 13.1 months versus 4.6 months for chemo group — in those with EGFR mutation

Posted: July 22, 2011

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) — New research finds that the targeted cancer drug Tarceva nearly triples the amount of time lung cancer patients survive without a recurrence and has fewer side effects than standard chemotherapy.

The authors of a study appearing in the July 21 online issue of The Lancet Oncology recommend using Tarceva (erlotinib) as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who have the particular gene mutation this drug targets. Other experts agreed.

ATLANTA, July 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — During the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer, leading users of Elekta Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) technology presented their findings on the use of SBRT to treat early stage, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The most common form of lung cancer, NSCLC arises from a number of causes, including active smoking, passive smoking (secondhand smoke), and exposure to other carcinogens.

In an oral presentation, Dr. Andrew J. Hope, Radiation Oncologist, Princess Margaret Hospital (Toronto, Canada) discussed the experience of a multinational consortium of Elekta collaborators that has treated operable, early stage lung cancer. Titled, Outcomes of operable patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) treated with image guided stereotactic body radiation therapy (IG-SBRT), the consortium found that the 505 tumors in the 483 operable patients declining a thoracotomy and subsequently treated with IG-SBRT had overall survival and cancer-specific outcomes similar to reported surgical series. With the condition that additional follow-up would be required, the data support continued investigation of IG-SBRT, suggesting that IG-SBRT is potentially an equivalent alternative to surgery in operable patients with early stage lung cancer.

LEXINGTON, Mass., Jul 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. SNTA +1.27% , a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing small molecule drugs to treat severe medical conditions, today announced that the first patient has been treated in a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial of ganetespib in combination with docetaxel in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Ganetespib is a potent inhibitor of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) that is structurally unrelated to first-generation, ansamycin-family Hsp90 inhibitors such as 17-AAG or IPI-504, and has shown superior activity to these agents in preclinical studies. Ganetespib is currently being studied in broad range of Phase 2 trials, including NSCLC, with nearly 400 patients treated to date.

ScienceDaily (July 18, 2011) — Lung cancer is strongly correlated with smoking, and most lung cancer patients are current or former smokers. But it is not rare in nonsmokers. Now, a team of researchers from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL, shows that a protein called ID1 is a key player in lung cancer in both smokers and nonsmokers. The research is published in the July issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Cancer studies less likely than other research fields to make data available for reuse

Durham, NC — A new study finds that — even in a field with clear standards and online databases — the rate of public data archiving in cancer research is increasing only slowly. Furthermore, research studies in cancer and human subjects are less likely than other research studies to make their datasets available for reuse.

The results come from a study of patterns of research data availability conducted by Dr Heather Piwowar of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.

Data collected in scientific research is often useful for future studies by other investigators, but scientists have rarely made their raw research data widely available. Tools and initiatives are underway to encourage scientists to publicly archive their data. This analysis confirms there is still much room for improvement.

Combination of Landmark Internal Radiation Therapy and da Vinci Robotics Represents Paradigm Shift in Early Stage Lung Cancer Treatment

RICHLAND, Wash., Jul 12, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — IsoRay, Inc. ISR +7.37% announced another milestone, today, in the use of its proprietary Cesium-131 (Cs-131) brachytherapy seeds (internal radiation therapy) in mesh. Dr. Deepak Khuntia, known as one of the nation’s leading thought leaders in lung and brain tumors, performed the world’s first implant of Cesium-131 mesh brachytherapy in an early stage lung cancer patient using the da Vinci(R) Surgical System. Dr. Khuntia and the surgical team performed the surgery at El Camino Hospital in California.

For many patients with stage 1 lung cancer, treatment options are severely limited. Typically, extensive surgery is performed, removing the entire cancerous lung or one of five lobes of the lung. However, this surgery is not an option for patients with limited breathing capacity and health problems that impact normal breathing. The alternative option is a limited surgical procedure to remove the tumor mass from a lobe, leaving these patients with a 20 to 40 percent chance of their cancer recurring along the surgical repair line. With Cesium-131 mesh brachytherapy, Dr. Khuntia says the odds shift in the patient’s favor, “Mesh brachytherapy can dramatically reduce the recurrence rate for early-stage lung-cancer patients. With brachytherapy, recurrence is just one percent. That’s a significant difference. At the same time, patients receive significantly less radiation exposure than traditional radiation.” Using the da Vinci robot to implant the Cesium-131 mesh brachytherapy further reduces radiation exposure for physicians and adds a new level of safety for patients, who benefit from a smaller incision and quicker recovery.

Lung cancer patients given amrubicin (Calsed) as a second-line therapy had a significantly improved response rate and longer progression-free survival than patients treated with topotecan (Hycamtin), according to research presented at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Amsterdam, hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

“Amrubicin showed significant improvements in tumor shrinkage, symptom control and progression-free survival over topotecan without improving overall survival, the primary endpoint of the trial,” said principal investigator Dr. Joachim von Pawel, of the Asklepios Hospital Munich-Gauting in Germany. “However, for patients with the most difficult-to-treat small cell lung cancer, amrubicin offered an improvement in overall survival compared with topotecan.”

by Sheela Philomena on  July 09, 2011 at 11:47 AM

For the first time the entire DNA, RNA of a patient with lung cancer has been sequenced by researchers.

The 61-year-old woman patient, whose lung cancer had entered her bloodstream and spread to other parts of her body, had been treated with several types of chemotherapy.

The study used Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), also called Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), to look at all 3 billion chemical bases of the patient’s normal, as well as the patient’s tumour, DNA.

It went further by examining the normal and tumour RNA for whole transcriptome sequencing, which can reveal the possible defects in how proteins are synthesized. This provided an even more intricate view of the tumours biological make up and what might have led to her cancer.