A Gene Test To Assess Lung Cancer

July 21, 2008

U.S. and Canadian researchers have taken steps toward developing a gene test to determine whether a patient's lung cancer is especially aggressive or whether radical treatment can be avoided.

The researchers reported Sunday that they had analyzed lung cancer tissue from 442 people to confirm that measuring the activity of certain genes could help predict early on which cases may be the most deadly and which had a better prognosis.

Knowing whether a person has an aggressive tumor - one likely to spread quickly and uncontrollably beyond the lungs - is critical in determining the type of treatment needed.

The researchers said tracking gene activity, along with taking into account clinical factors like the patient's age, sex and the tumor stage, made them better able to make a prognosis.

Doctors are eager to come up with reliable ways to determine how aggressive a tumor is likely to be when a patient is in the earliest stages of lung cancer. Some patients have aggressive tumors that could require additional types of potentially onerous treatment, while people with less invasive tumors may be able to avoid such treatment.

"We're hoping that by looking at activity of specific genes that it would basically give us a window into the aggressiveness of it," said David Beer, professor of surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School who helped lead the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer death in women; about 975,000 men and 376,000 women are projected to die from it annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

Out of about 22,000 genes tracked in the study, Beer said the activity of "hundreds" was implicated in predicting the aggressiveness of a tumor.

The particular type of cancer involved in the study was lung adenocarcinoma, which often is caused by smoking.

(C) 2008 International Herald Tribune. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved