Scientists identify earliest changes that may lead to smoking-related lung cancer
Smokers who are looking for a cheap way to quit cigarettes can buy over the counter medications, such as nicotine patches or other smoking cessation products.
Smokers who are looking for a cheap way to quit cigarettes can buy over the counter medications, such as nicotine patches or other smoking cessation products. Quitting this habit can avert illnesses such as emphysema or lung cancer. Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered the earliest processes in which smoking can cause this respiratory malignancy.
In an experiment, the team of scientists analyzed the epithelial cells that lined the large and small airways of nonsmokers, healthy smokers and smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The goal was to pinpoint early signs of lung cancer and develop potential initial treatments.
Results showed that cells from the large airways of smokers tended to express more genes related to cancer development than nonsmokers. The small airway cells did not differ much between nonsmokers and healthy smokers, but those with COPD expressed more cancer-prone genes.
The results suggest that the large airway cells may be the earliest structures to develop a malignancy, as presented at the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer: Biology, Therapy and Personalized Medicine.
"Ideally, we would use these genes to do very routine analysis to determine which smokers or even nonsmokers are at risk for development of lung cancer," said researcher Renat Shaykhiev, MD, PhD.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smokers tend to die up to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
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