The earlier cancers can be detected, the better the chances of a cure. Researchers are now working to develop a new diagnostics platform with which the illness can be diagnosed in its early stages, even during a visit to the general practitioner: protein biomarkers in exhaled air divulge the presence of pathological cells in the lung.

The NHS is to urge people to report telltale signs of cancer to their GP in an attempt to reduce the 10,000 deaths caused by late diagnosis of the disease each year.

The Department of Health is providing £8m for primary care trusts (PCTs) across England to fund campaigns to raise the profile of the UK’s three biggest cancer killers – breast, bowel and lung cancer.

Between them, the three forms of the disease account for around 63,400 of the 155,000 cancer deaths in the UK each year.

In the past, doctors have diagnosed a disease, and often, all doctors treated that particular disease in the same way with the same drugs. Now, DNA testing is allowing doctors to treat each individual patient and not just the disease.

This more specific treatment will give patients targeted therapies and better results.

Personalized medicine is already benefiting patients today, especially those suffering from certain types of cancer.

University of Colorado Hospital patient Andy Hill says that less than one year ago, he “had chest pains, considerable fatigue – hard to get out of bed in the mornings.”

Hill was fighting stage 3 lung cancer with metastasis. He was exhausted and could hardly climb the stairs in his house back in Seattle.

Hill says his cancer diagnosis caught everyone by surprise.

Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in the United States. Now, new technologies are making it easier and less expensive to detect it early.

But is Medicare making it too hard for patients to get access to them? 2 Investigator Pam Zekman looks at one company’s struggle to get a procedure approved.

Electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy — or ENB – gives physicians a virtual tour of a patient’s lungs

“This is a potentially very powerful tool in the toolbox (against) lung cancer,” says Dan Sullivan, president of a company called superDimension, which developed and markets ENB.

Kent Hospital has created a lung cancer early-detection program that aims to identify people at high risk for the disease, detect early-stage cancers and try to cure them before it’s too late.

“The ultimate goal with the program is to find potential cases of lung cancer at the earliest stage possible when treatment can be most successful, and help save lives,” said Dr. Michael Dacey, Kent senior vice president and chief medical officer.

Smokers may develop a mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked, according to new analysis of the genome of a tumor from a lung cancer patient. By comparing the patient’s normal genome sequence to the sequence of the tumor, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in London, found that the tumor cells had acquired more than 23,000 mutations, according to research published in Nature on Thursday.

Lung cancer symptoms are very elusive and misleading. Mostly the condition is diagnosed only after having reached advanced stages. As of now there is no screening procedure for lung cancer. Symptoms are almost non existent where lung cancer is concerned.

There might be a mild cough or shortness of breath that can also be attributed to some respiratory infections. This is the main reason as to why most of the lung cancer cases go undiagnosed in the early stages. Only a meagre 16% of the cases are diagnosed early enough to facilitate treatment and cure.

The discovery of genetic markers in the blood which indicate early-stage lung tumors could lead to a simple blood test to detect lung cancer in its earliest phases, when it can be most successfully treated.

Lung cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in both men and women in the United States, accounting for 162,000 deaths in 2008, more than any other cancer.

Children who breathe second-hand cigarette smoke face an increased risk of lung cancer, even if they never smoke, according to a new study.

The research, which involved 624 people in Maryland suffering from lung cancer and an independent control group of 348 healthy individuals, found that the likelihood that a person who had been exposed to second-hand smoke during childhood had contracted lung cancer was more than twice that of a person who had not. Researchers interviewed the participants about their histories of exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke.