Results tagged “lung cancer” from Cancer

Six schools in the Halifax area have had higher levels of potentially harmful radon gas than the new, stricter limits Health Canada is considering.

The schools, among 14 tested in the province for radon gas in 2004, exceeded the proposed advisable limit of 200 becquerels per cubic metre but fell within the current federal guideline of 800, provincial records indicate.

They were: Atlantic Memorial Consolidated in Shad Bay, East St. Margaret’s Elementary in Indian Harbour, Five Bridges Junior High (the former Sir John A. Macdonald High) in Hubley, St. Margaret’s Bay Elementary in Head of St. Margarets Bay, Terence Bay School and William King Elementary in Herring Cove.

A new breath test has been reported to detect lung cancer in its early stage. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and doctors believe that early detection could offer sufferers their best chance for early survival.

Dr. Michael Phillips, CEO of Menssana Research, the company that developed the breath test, said, "We developed a breathalyzer that is one billion times more sensitive than those the police use to measure alcohol in the breath. It detects around 200 different chemicals in a person's breath, and some of these chemicals are markers of cancer. A breath test has great advantages over most other medical tests - it is completely safe, painless and non-invasive. All you have to do is breathe gently into a tube for two minutes. There are no potentially dangerous x-rays to worry about, and it will certainly be a lot less expensive than chest imaging."

American cigarette warning labels might be more effective if they were big and graphic -- like those in some other countries, according to a new study.

The news appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

In the study, researchers surveyed nearly 15,000 adult smokers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia to test the effectiveness of the warning labels used in those four countries. The surveys were conducted between 2002 and 2005.

Scientists in Taiwan have developed a simple, five-gene test aimed at showing which lung cancer patients most need chemotherapy, as similar tests now do for people with breast cancer and lymphoma.

The experimental test needs to be validated in larger groups of patients, so widespread use is perhaps a few years away. However, it's already winning praise for its possible use in everyday hospital settings instead of in limited situations by people with special genetics training.

"This has the potential to be extremely helpful," said Dr. David Johnson, a lung cancer expert at Vanderbilt University and former president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world's largest group of cancer specialists.

China will have the world's highest number of lung cancer patients 1 million a year by 2025 if smoking and pollution are not effectively curbed, experts have warned, citing World Health Organization (WHO) figures.

According to the national tumor prevention and cure research office affiliated to the Ministry of Health, the country had 120,000 new lung cancer patients during the past five years.

Lung cancer killed more people than any other disease one out of every four, sources said.

When given to ease pain and other complaints in patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer, a longer, less intense course of radiotherapy offers better value for the money than short-course intense treatment, concludes a study by Dutch researchers.

A previous study by the Leiden University Medical Center team compared a short course of two treatments of 8 gray (Gy) of radiation each, or a long course of 10 treatments of 3 Gy each. Patients who received the long course had more symptom improvement and improved one-year survival compared to patients who received the short course.

In this new study, the researchers analyzed the costs of the two treatment approaches to determine which one offered the best value for the money. They estimated the costs of treatment and related expenses, such as medical care for people who survived their cancer.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) had said Alimta (pemetrexed disodium) should not be used in England and Wales.

The drug is used to treat mesothelioma, a type of cancer which most often affects the lining of the lungs and is mainly linked to asbestos exposure.

The original ruling was appealed by manufacturers Eli Lilly.

NICE has now announced the case will be reviewed by its appraisal committee.

Cell Therapeutics said late Thursday it has shut down its most important clinical trial because patients who took its cancer drug were dying more quickly than those receiving a standard chemotherapy drug.

The Seattle biotech company, which suspended the trial a month ago, will submit a newly designed study to the Food and Drug Administration by year's end. The company said data from the 200 patients who were treated so far will not be used if it eventually seeks FDA approval for the drug, called Xyotax.

The trial, called Pioneer, had the unusual feature of being limited exclusively to women with lung cance

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Genzyme Corporation announced today the commercial availability of a new laboratory test to help identify non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who may not respond to targeted therapies. Genzyme's KRAS Mutation Analysis will help identify NSCLC patients who test positive for specific KRAS mutations. Mutations in the KRAS gene have been associated with resistance to certain drugs currently used in treating this deadly form of cancer, including the tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) Tarceva(R) (erlotinib) and IRESSA(R) (gefitinib).

"Between 15 and 30 percent of tumors from NSCLC patients have mutations in the KRAS gene and clinical studies show that this information plays an important role in making treatment decisions," said Mara Aspinall, president of Genzyme Genetics, the business unit of Genzyme Corp. focused on the research, development and provision of complex testing services. "Genzyme Genetics is currently the only national commercial laboratory in the U.S. to offer this new test. We believe this test will provide physicians and their patients with critical information to help determine how best to move forward with their treatment."

TUESDAY, Nov. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Cigarette makers may publicly admit that their products cause cancer, but when sued by sick smokers, they deny or minimize the link, according to a new analysis of lawsuits.

Researchers at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Detroit reviewed 34 personal injury claims brought against major tobacco manufacturers in the United States between 1986 and 2003.

The defense arguments used by the tobacco companies included: a lack of scientific proof that smoking causes cancer; denials that a plaintiff had lung cancer; or acknowledging that a plaintiff had lung cancer, but a kind of lung cancer not caused by smoking.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Tobacco-related diseases including cancers and heart disease will kill 6.4 million people a year by 2015, 50 percent more than AIDS, a study said on Tuesday.

But the HIV/AIDS epidemic will be the leading cause of illness and disability in low- and middle-income countries by then and take an increasing number of lives worldwide, it said.

The study by World Health Organization (WHO) researchers projects global figures for mortality and the burden of 10 major disease groups in both 2015 and 2030. 

"According to our baseline projection, smoking will kill 50 percent more people in 2015 than HIV/AIDS and will be responsible for 10 percent of all deaths globally," said their study in the Public Library of Science Medicine (PLoS Medicine).

Up to 200 people a year die from lung cancer caused by high levels of radon gas in Ireland – way above the global average, health organisations revealed today.

Between 6% and 15% of annual lung cancer deaths across the world are caused by exposure to the gas, which equates to up to 170,000 deaths, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In Ireland, up to 13% of lung cancer deaths are caused by exposure to radon, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) said today.

Thousands of lung cancer sufferers are set to be denied the potentially life-extending drug Tarceva, under draft guidance from the government's health watchdog.

Tarceva, which costs £6,796 for the average 125-day course of treatment, is considered one of the few significant advances against non-small cell lung cancer to have occurred for a decade, and is designed for patients who have failed at one chemotherapy regime.

The drug is seen as particularly crucial because it could be effective for 80% of lung cancer sufferers, accounting for 30,000 new cases a year.

While it does not offer a cure, it increases the chances of being alive after a year by 42%, according to the drug manufacturers Roche.

Lung cancer has claimed the title of most deadly cancer in the Chinese capital, sources with the Beijing Research Institute of Tumor Prevention and Control said on Monday.

Zhi Xiuyi , a professor with Capital Medical University, said Beijingers are increasingly familiar with lung cancer. One out of every four cancer sufferers in the city is a lung cancer patient.

With incidence of the disease on rise, the average age at which a patient contracts lung cancer goes down by 12 months every five years, Zhi added.

The youngest lung cancer sufferer diagnosed by the Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Center of Beijing's Xuanwu Hospital was only 21 years old.

HealthDay News -- A simple breath test could someday help predict who's at highest risk of getting lung cancer.

In preliminary research, the breath test was successful in finding cancer "markers," said senior researcher Dr. Simon D. Spivack, a pulmonologist at the Wadsworth Center, the public health laboratory of the New York State Department of Health.

That's important, he added, because "lung cancer [typically] exists for a decade or two before it is diagnosed."

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Jim Boyd smoked for 40 years before quitting this summer. Both of his parents died of smoking-related illnesses.

Boyd, 61 and a resident of Wentzville, Mo., hopes to avoid their fate by participating in a multinational research study through St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles, part of the SSM Health Care System. The study aims to catch lung cancer early by using spiral CT scans to find tiny cancerous lesions in patients' lungs.

Early results, published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the process was able to detect lung cancer in its earliest stage, when surgery could be most successful.

However, Boyd's insurance company will not cover the $300 cost of the test.

Two University of Louisville researchers have developed a vaccine that prevents lung cancer in mice, a treatment they say could lead to a vaccine for humans against lung and other forms of cancer. 

John W. Eaton, one of the researchers, presented the findings today at an international cancer conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

Eaton, deputy director of UofL's James Graham Brown Cancer Center, said that the results in mice are promising but that much more research is needed — particularly into whether the results will translate to humans.