For immediate release – August 17, 2011 (Toronto) – Smokers with variations in two specific genes have a greater risk of smoking more cigarettes, becoming more dependent on nicotine and developing lung cancer, a new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows.

The cancer risk from these two genes appears to be even higher in smokers who consume 20 or fewer cigarettes a day, according to the study published in the September issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

CAMH Scientist Dr. Rachel Tyndale and her team studied two genes: the nicotine metabolic gene (CYP2A6) and the nicotinic gene cluster (CHRNA5-A3-B3). These genes have been independently linked to smoking behaviours and lung cancer.

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.

NicVAX® (Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine) is an investigational vaccine designed as an aid to smoking cessation, as well as an aid to prevent relapses of a treated smoker leading to long-term abstinence.

NicVAX represents an extension of our conjugate vaccine technology that allows us to address a significant unmet medical need. We believe that broad commercialization of NicVAX requires large-scale sales and marketing programs focused on primary care physicians. As such we have secured an option and license agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the leading global pharmaceutical companies. GSK has also depth of vaccine development and commercialization as well as smoking cessation expertise that should be an asset in our effort to successfully bring NicVAX to market.

Celecoxib significantly reduces bronchial Ki-67 labeling index, and may be a potential chemopreventive agent for lung cancer in former smokers, according to a study published in the July issue of Cancer Prevention Research.

FRIDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) — Celecoxib significantly reduces bronchial Ki-67 labeling index (Ki-67 LI), and may be a potential chemopreventive agent for lung cancer in former smokers, according to a study published in the July issue of Cancer Prevention Research.

A team at Roche’s biotechnology unit Genentech in California compared all the genetic changes in a single patient’s lung tumor with healthy tissue from the patient, a 51-year-old man who had smoked an average of 25 cigarettes per day for 15 years before the tumor was removed.

What they found were as many as 50,000 genetic mutations.

“Fifty thousand is a huge number. No one has ever reported such a high number,” said Zemin Zhang of Genentech, whose findings appear in the journal Nature.

“This is likely associated with the smoking history of the patient. It is very alarming,” Zhang said in a telephone interview.

Smoking is the biggest single cause of lung cancer, and studies suggest mutations occur with each cigarette smoked.

SKINNY smokers, beware. Thinner smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer than their fatter counterparts, researchers found in a survey here.

And compared with slender non-smokers, slim people who light up are 11 times more likely to contract the disease.

But the study’s lead author, National University of Singapore epidemiologist Koh Woon Puay, emphasised that those who smoke are still more likely to contract lung cancer overall than those who do not. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in men here, and the third most common in women.

In April 2008, 60-year-old Cheryl Rose got a bad cough that wouldn’t go away.

Her doctors thought she had asthma — a bizarre turn for a woman who had never had difficulty breathing, not even during frequent workouts at the gym.

A few weeks later, an X-ray revealed that her right lung was filling with fluid at a frightening rate. Doctors told Rose, a woman who lived a healthy lifestyle and had never taken regular medications, that she probably wouldn’t live to see 2009.

Quitting smoking after a diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer may reduce the risk of cancer recurrence and death. These results were published in the British Medical Journal.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with an estimated 159,000 deaths each year.

Smoking cessation is known to reduce a smoker’s risk of developing lung cancer, but less is known about the effect of smoking cessation after a lung cancer diagnosis.

Quitting smoking after being diagnosed with lung cancer can prolong life and reduce the risk of a cancer recurrence or the development of a new lung cancer, according to research published online ahead of print in the British Medical Journal.

One out of 14 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer during their lifetime. Unfortunately only 16 percent will survive, because the majority will be diagnosed too late, when the cancer has already spread beyond the lungs. Lung cancer remains the country’s number one cancer killer. It is expected to take the lives of more than 160,000 Americans this year, more than prostate, breast, melanoma, liver and kidney cancers combined.