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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Although its the deadliest cancer, not all smokers are affected by lung cancer equally. Now, doctors are one step closer to understanding why some patients develop lung cancer while others do not.
More than 50 percent of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients are former smokers, Emily A. Vucic, a graduate student at the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre in Vancouver, B.C., and member of the research team, was quoted as saying. Understanding why some former smokers develop lung cancer is clearly important to the development of early detection, prevention and treatment strategies.
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Using an endoscope, researchers collected bronchial epithelial cells -- cells that line the lungs -- from 16 former smokers who stopped smoking more than 10 years earlier. They discovered differences in DNA methylation levels in lung epithelial cells between former smokers with and without lung cancer.
As methylation is a reversible DNA modification, this knowledge could prompt the development and application of chemopreventive agents and unique therapeutic strategies that target DNA methylation in these patients, Vucic said.
Researchers say more tests need to be done to confirm these latest findings.
SOURCE: Presented at the American Association for Cancer Researchs Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in National Harbor, MD, November 17, 2008
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