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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.