Lung Cancer Information

June 25, 2007, 9:26 PM CT

Smoking may interfere with alcoholics' neurocognitive recovery

Alcoholics frequently smoke. Anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of individuals in North America who seek alcoholism therapy are also chronic smokers. New findings indicate that smoking may interfere with alcoholics neurocognitive recovery during their first six to nine months of abstinence from alcohol.

• Alcoholics frequently smoke.
• A number of alcoholics in therapy continue to smoke.
• New findings indicate that smoking may interfere with alcoholics neurocognitive recovery during their first six to nine months of alcohol abstinence.

Results are reported in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research

There are several possible explanations for the concurrent use of alcohol and tobacco products, said Timothy C. Durazzo, assistant adjunct professor in the department of radiology at the University of California San Francisco, and corresponding author for the study. Nicotine and alcohol may enhance each others rewarding properties; nicotine may decrease some of alcohols negative effects on cognition and motor incoordination; paired use of nicotine and alcohol may produce a strong association between the two substances such that the use of one leads to cravings for the other; and there may exist a genetic vulnerability for concurrent active cigarette smoking and alcohol dependence......... Posted by: Geethu      Read more         Source

March 29, 2007, 5:08 AM CT

New Cigarettes Designs Don't Offer Lower Cancer Risks

The tobacco company's description of its new cigarette brand seems to promise a lot.

"May present less risk of cancer linked to smoking," the company boasts on its Web site, making it a natural choice "for smokers who have decided not to quit, but who are interested in a cigarette that responds to concerns about certain smoking-related illnesses, including cancer." Another tobacco firm, in a print ad for the brand, has crowed "All of the taste. Less of the toxins".

But a study by Dr. James F. Pankow of Oregon Health & Science University may snuff out claims by tobacco companies that smoking such newly marketed "potentially reduced-exposure product" (PREP) cigarettes is safer. The study, appearing March 16 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, observed that the predicted risks of lung cancer from PREP cigarettes is not meaningfully lower than for the conventional cigarettes that most smokers puff on every day.

The report demonstrates that science does not adequately understand the sources of the cancer effects of smoke from conventional cigarettes. As a result, even if some of the known toxins -such as formaldehyde, arsenic, and cadmium - are removed from cigarette smoke by the new PREP designs, tobacco companies could not be sure the cancer risks had been lowered to any meaningful degree. The paper states that this makes promises of reduced harm based on such removal "speculative and unverified"......... Posted by: Geethu      Read more         Source

March 19, 2007, 9:40 PM CT

Cause of Smokers' Cravings

Video of Jed Rose explaining the regions of the brain that control craving is available in the following formats: RealMedia, QuickTime and Windows Media Video.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Within the mind of every smoker trying to quit rages a battle between the higher-order functions of the brain wanting to break the habit and the lower-order functions screaming for another cigarette, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center. More often than not, that cigarette gets lit.

Brain scans of smokers studied by the researchers revealed three specific regions deep within the brain that appear to control dependence on nicotine and craving for cigarettes. These regions play important roles in some of the key motivations for smoking: to calm down when stressed, to achieve pleasure and to help concentration.

"If you can't calm down, can't derive pleasure and can't control yourself or concentrate, then it will be extremely difficult for you to break the habit," said lead study investigator Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. "These brain regions may explain why most people try to quit several times before they are successful".

Understanding how the brain responds to cigarette cravings can help doctors change nicotine cessation treatments to address all three of these components of withdrawal, Rose said. Drugs or therapies that target these regions may help smokers stave off the cravings that often spoil their attempts to quit......... Posted by: Geethu      Read more         Source

March 13, 2007, 10:09 PM CT

Lung Cancer-derived EGFR Mutants

A new study sheds light on how some small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors, including two that are currently being used clinically to treat cancer, interact with wild-type and mutated forms of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The research, reported in the recent issue of the journal Cancer Cell, published by Cell Press, may help to guide rational use of currently available EGFR inhibitors and provides new direction for the design and development of even more potent inhibitors that are tailored to specific EGFR mutants.

A number of human malignancies exhibit mutated forms of the EGFR, a tyrosine kinase that plays a critical role in signaling pathways controlling cell proliferation and survival. Eventhough the specific mechanisms are unclear, studies have shown that some EGFR mutations are linked to increased sensitivity to small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors. To better understand how distinct mutant EGFRs interact with inhibitors on a structural level, Dr. Michael J. Eck from Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and his colleagues studied the enzyme activity of two lung cancer-derived EGFR mutants and determined their crystal structures when bound to several different usually used inhibitors.

The scientists observed that the L858R and G719S EGFR mutants disrupt inhibitory interactions within the EGFR, leading to a characteristic overactivation of the enzyme. Structural examination of the inhibitor complexes, which included the drug gefitinib (Iressa), revealed that the mutations can affect the way the inhibitors interact with the enzyme. Interestingly, the inhibitors gefitinib and AEE788 bind much more tightly to the L858R mutant than to the wild-type EGFR. This finding explains the observation that tumors bearing this mutation have been found to be more responsive to therapy with gefitinib......... Posted by: Geethu      Read more         Source

December 17, 2006, 9:16 PM CT

New Lung Cancer Therapy With Fewer Radiation Treatments

You probably have not to take that prolonged therapy with radiation treatment. Now there is a new cancer therapy that cuts down the amount of radiation a patient must endure. This new therapy method would cut 35 therapys of radiation to five therapys. This new technique is called sterotactic body radiotherapy.

Julie Lenander has lung cancer. She's getting stereotactic body radiotherapy at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview.

As per her radiation oncologist Dr. L. Chinsoo Cho, this therapy, ".is designed to treat patients who are medically inoperable."

Lenander can't have surgery because she already had one lobe of lung surgically removed. She says, "Surgery would take away more lung and consequently it would be harder to breathe".

Radiation is her only option.

Stereotactic body radiotherapy is more intense and precise than traditional radiation.

It targets a tumor from all sides, down to the millimeter, with the help of ten beams of radiation as opposed to the traditional two or three.........

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December 17, 2006, 9:09 PM CT

Successful Lung Cancer Surgery Not Enough

We would believe that once someone is diagnosed with lung cancer and undergoes a surgery, which involves removal of part or the whole of lung would motivate that person to quit smoking. But that may not be correct. A new study has observed that close to half of 154 smokers who had surgery to remove early stage lung cancer picked up a cigarette again within 12 months of their potentially curative operation, and more than one-third were smoking at the one year mark. Sixty percent of patients who started smoking again did so within two months of surgery.

The study, led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine and reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, is the first to look at smoking relapse among people who were "forced" to quit due to impending surgery.

"These patients are all addicted, so you cannot assume they will easily change their behavior simply because they have dodged this particular bullet," said the study's lead author, Mark S. Walker, Ph.D., a clinical psychology expert and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University. "Their choices are driven by insidious cravings for nicotine."

The researchers observed that those smokers who were the last to give up their cigarettes - some on the same day as their operation - and who saw smoking as a pleasurable activity they would have difficulty giving up, were also the first to resume the habit. And they concluded that patients who were able to hold out the longest before they took up a cigarette after surgery were the ones who were most likely not to be smoking in a year's time.........

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December 17, 2006, 8:36 PM CT

Exercise may reduce lung cancer risk

Good news for women who do regular exercise! Even if you smoke your may reduce your chance of developing lung cancer by doing regular exercise. This new study shows that regular exercise may cut down the risk of lung cancer. But this comes with a warning. The researchers caution that any relative benefit is dwarfed by the benefits gained from kicking the habit.

In the study, women who reported high levels of physical activity were 23 per cent less likely to develop lung cancer than those who were the least active, report Dr Kathryn H.

Schmitz of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and his colleagues. And among women who smoked, greater activity was tied to a 28 per cent lower lung cancer risk, while women who were ex-smokers showed a 37 per cent lower risk with more activity.

Nevertheless, smokers remained at much higher risk of lung cancer than those who had never smoked, or those who had quit, Schmitz and her team note. "Quitting smoking is the single most important action a smoker can take to reduce risk of lung cancer," they note.

Studies investigating the effect of exercise on lung cancer risk have had mixed results. To better understand the relationship, they looked at 36,929 women participating in the Iowa Women's Health Study who were followed from 1986 to 2002.........

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